This African Nation’s Surprise Plan for Farming Through Climate Disaster
The landlocked country of Malawi, in southeast Africa, is home to just 19.1 million people. According to the U.N., more than 2.8 million of these people—nearly 15 percent of the entire population—currently face starvation. Much of the reason, unsurprisingly, is climate-related: The country’s Ministry of Agriculture has stated that the production of corn—the country’s main staple food—dropped by 14 percent the previous year, as a result of severe drought and floods.
One of the poorest countries on Earth, with over half of its population living in poverty, Malawi is no stranger to food crises. Nearly three-quarters of its people live on less than $1.90 per day. Agriculture is the country’s economic mainstay, with an estimated 80 percent of the rural population subsisting on farming. Climate havoc caused by human activity—from floods to droughts—can decimate crops, upending livelihoods as well as the ability to keep people fed.
It would be impossible to simply push Malawi’s people into a new kind of industry that is more resistant to climate-related changes; and people would continue to starve from a lack of available food. So the solution, instead, may be to switch up the agriculture system altogether and move away from corn.
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A study published in 2021 shows that Malawi’s dairy smallholder farmers have far higher food crop yields and annual incomes, more diversified sources of income, and are more resilient to food insecurity than nondairy farmers. In this way, Malawi is quickly becoming something of a case study for whether the future of farming is to double down on dairy production and investment.
Why dairy? What makes it a more secure agricultural bet? According to Timothy Gondwe, a professor of animal breeding at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Malawi, animals typically have an easier time adapting to climate change than plants do. There’s no way for corn to modify its behavior so it can survive a drought, for instance. But a cow will still be able to produce milk, and its body could, to some extent, adjust and adapt to the heat so it continues to stay healthy. And since dairy is a year-round foodstuff, it can act as a steady source of income to support a family.
“In areas where drought hits, the failed crops become feed for dairy, together with grown and conserved grasses,” Gondwe told The Daily Beast. Because of this, dairy is among livestock [goats and chickens] that contribute to climate change resilience among smallholder communities.”
Gondwe is using the term “smallholder” to refer to small farms where crops alone probably will not provide enough money for a household—“hence dairy becomes a better option,” he said.
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Livestock, of course, are not immune to the effects of climate change. A drought will inevitably harm milk production or even outright kill cows. But Gondwe does argue that it is easier to identify and grow exotic breeds that can withstand changing conditions more easily.
“Animals in these areas are usually local to the area, and have adapted to such situations, and are able to produce and reproduce at low rates that are compatible to the production systems,” he said. “Because of this, a farmer loses in terms of yield per animal, but still gets some output.”
In recent years Malawi has seen the number of dairy farmers rise, thanks in part thanks to investments from nonprofits, the private sector, and the government. The Ministry of Agriculture reported a 3.4 percent rise in the number of dairy cows in 2021. That same year, Norfund invested about $5 million in Lilongwe Dairy, a milk processing company located in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, to finance the company’s expansion and increase milk production. Lilongwe Dairy buys milk from about 10,000 farmers spread throughout the country, according to general manager of operations Edwin Chilundo.
In 2019, the Malawi government, with a loan from the World Bank, launched a six-year, $95 million Agricultural Commercialization (AGCOM) project to increase the dairy production of 650,000 farming households in the country.
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Gracian Lungu, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture, told The Daily Beast that one of the government’s major priorities is to help farmers diversify what they grow and produce to adapt to the worsening impact of climate change, and help agriculture find solutions to food insecurity. Besides dairy, the government is encouraging farmers to grow more legumes, and expand into aquaculture.
Lukasi Jekete, a 58-year-old dairy farmer in Lilongwe, thinks he has first-hand experience that dairy farmers fare better than others who are focused solely on corn production.
“This year Malawians are facing food shortages,” he told The Daily Beast. “And when you go on the market the price of food has gone up almost five times compared to last year in the same period.”
Jekete said drought caused crops in the field to wither before maturity.
“As a result many smallholder farmers did not harvest enough to feed their families,” he said. “Dairy farmers are lucky because despite the drought we are able to get milk every day and use the cash to buy the maize.”
Jekete started dairy farming in 2007 after getting a cow from the Small Scale Livestock and Livelihoods Program (SSLP). Today he has six cows, and gets 20 liters of milk each day, selling milk for $0.22 per liter.
“Any investment in the dairy industry is most welcome,” Herbert Chagona, the national director for the Malawi Milk Producers Association, told The Daily Beast. Climate change has “really devastated the agriculture sector,” and dairy has proven to be more resistant to the effects than other farming sectors. He lauded Norfund’s investment, and hopes that more participation from the government and private sector will help more farmers make the transition to dairy as part of their work.
To be fair, dairy farming is not immune to climate change. Livestock can be hard to raise and maintain. Climate change is adding to these challenges by making it harder to access feed, and increases the spread of disease. According to Gondwe, efforts to breed cattle that are more adaptive could offset these problems, and he recommends farmers keep a mix of exotic and local breeds. He also recommends better land management to ensure more sustainable access to feed.
“These [solutions], if well implemented on the farm, increase milk yield which is a solution to food insecurity,” he said.
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