By Andrew P. Smith, Contributor 
Victim of food crisis. - Contributed
EVERY YEAR we see the same images and hear the same story famine in Africa. In 1984 graphic pictures of death in the Horn of Africa images inspired Bob Geldof to organise Band Aid and Live Aid. Nearly twenty years later Southern African countries faced a similar predicament while the World Summit on Sustainable Development was being held in Johannesburg, South Africa. According to USAID, nearly 13 million people are at risk of starvation due to crop failures in the region, including 6 million in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique.
Yet it is not too late to avert a potentially devastating situation. Relief agencies are now in the region distributing the relief supplies that they have. But they do not have enough. The World Food Programme has received less than one quarter of the food that they have requested from donor countries. Maybe the international community and media are focused on more important matters, such as the "War on Terrorism". Compassion fatigue has set in the possibility of averting the death of over 12 million Africans just does not seem important.
I visited Malawi between September 1 and 8 to find out for myself the current state of affairs. Even though what I witnessed was sobering, everybody said that it is not as bad as it can get, even though official government estimates state that 500 people have already died from the current food shortages. Not numbers which excite the world. After a few more thousand have died, then they might warrant a few seconds or paragraphs in the global media.
Malawi is marketed to tourists as 'The Warm Heart of Africa' and is home to the friendliest people that I have ever met. Yet 3.2 million of its 12 million population are threatened by starvation due to the failure of this year's maize crop. This largely rural country is one of the least developed in terms of both per capita income and quality of life. It also has one of the world's greatest disparities between its richest and poorest citizens. Much of its landscape has been degraded to obtain cheap fuel except for the verdant tea and coffee plantations which employ rural Malawians.
HIV/AIDS affects 16.4 per cent of Malawi's adults, leaving many children orphaned. But they are still extremely friendly, jovial and polite. Even as the spectre of death hangs over their country. Why has this happen? Many reasons are given. These include colonial mandates in the late 19th century which changed traditional agricultural patterns and one hundred years later structural adjustment guidelines stipulated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. An International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) report states that these agencies pushed the governments to reduce their role in agricultural marketing and distribution, while neglecting to ensure that the private sector was able to fill this gap. According to the relief agency Oxfam, the IMF and World Bank at the behest of donor countries pushed for the removal of subsidies which the government used to smooth fluctuating maize prices. These subsidies allowed the poorest people to buy food cheaply from state food reserves. This is while United States and European Union governments spend the equivalent of US$20,000.00 and US$16,000.00 per farmer per year on their own agricultural subsidies.
Local corruption is also to be blamed. According to the Weekend Nation, Malawi's Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) is investigating several officials and organisations relating to the sale of US$38 million worth of maize from the country's strategic reserves. A former Minister of Agriculture reportedly obtained 300 tonnes of maize which he later resold. He is yet to pay for the maize. Officials from the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) and the Agricultural Development Marketing Corporation (ADMARC) are also named as culprits in mismanagement relating to the purchase and sale of Malawi's maize stocks. According to the Nation ADMARC is alleged to have sold 70,000 tonnes of NFRA maize worth US$4.2 million, without NFRA's authority. The government has had to borrow US $35.70 million to pay off NFRA's debts.
What does all this mean to the average Malawian? Malnutrition, starvation, and death. My first day in Malawi was spent with Helen Palmer of Oxfam. In the morning we visited the National Rehabilitation Unit (NRU) of the Mulanje
District Hospital in the south of the country. Mothers come from villages within a 12 kilometre radius with babies ranging from six weeks to two years old. At the NRU they find their way to a bed or the floor where they stay for a number of days until they are well enough to go back to their village. This is the good time of year, most mothers are relatively healthy and only a dozen children and mothers were here. From November to March the unit is overflowing with starving children as food shortages become more critical.
In the afternoon we visited the village of Mandanda, under the towering Mount Mulanje. The earth is parched and dry. This is one of the villages where Oxfam has distributed food to 32 out of the 300 families. Maggie Idi was not included in the latest distribution. We found this 77-year-old lady sitting under a tree, too weak to walk. She is currently supported by her five grand-children as her children died years ago succumbing to the many diseases which are rife in Malawi. These grand-children also have their own children to feed. We also met 42-year-old Fiba Lina who tries to care for six children three her own and the other three have been orphaned by her sister. All around we saw happy, smiling children who have accepted their lot in life with the calm acceptance and ignorance of not knowing anything different. It could be argued that ignorance is bliss, but death rarely brings happiness.
What can be done to prevent the situation in Malawi and the rest of Southern Africa from reaching crisis proportions? The relief agencies are at present on the ground, distributing what supplies they have. On the second day in Malawi, I attended a day of food distribution organised by the Irish relief agency, GOAL in the village of Matindi. Here 1,300 people waited patiently some all day to receive rations of 50 kg maize, 10 kg. of pinto beans and 5 kg. of likuna phala (a mix of soy, maize and sugar) which is enough to feed a family of five for one month. GOAL is doing this throughout Malawi during September. The villagers waited in their village group outside the compound, and then lined up to receive their supplies. Such organisation and patience impressed me it would be hard to see this level of discipline in many other countries, considering that we are talking about life or death.
Things are not as bad as they could be in Southern Africa. Thirteen million people are at risk of starving to death, but they are not dead yet they can still be saved. Yet the situation needs both short- and long-term solutions. Even if the World Food Programme received all the food aid required, this might be only forestalling the cycle. Long-term plans have to be put in place by the government and the people, with assistance by the international community. Maize has become the staple crop in Malawi, and when the harvest fails, as it has for the past two years, no other major food crop is there to fill the void. Crop and livestock diversification is necessary. Oxfam is encouraging the farmers to plant more cassava, sweet potato, groundnuts, soy beans and vegetables. Until April 2003, they will also supply chickens, rabbits and guinea fowl to supplement the diet.
Another more controversial option is genetically modified (GM) foods. Regarded as tainted food by many Southern African governments, stockpiles of GM maize from the United States are in warehouses in the region. A Zambian official, speaking on the BBC World Service has spoken about the fears of growing this maize, avowing that "It is dangerous". It is feared that the viruses used in the genetic engineering of the crops will mutate to form virulent viruses that can have adverse environmental affects. The donor countries have stated the African countries must accept the GM grain, or they will receive nothing else.
The ideal situation would be if the countries could feed themselves. However, with the dual burdens of debt repayments and corruption, deep fundamental changes are required. According to Oxfam, in 2001 Malawi spent US$59.0 million in debt servicing the same amount that it spent on health. Zambia spent US$158 million and Mozambique spent US$48 million.
It is September 2002. The Dogs of War are howling loudly, yet we cannot make them drown out the cries of Maggie Idi, Fiba Lina and the millions of Southern Africans who will die over the next few months. There is still time to save over 10 million Southern Africans from dying of starvation. The United States wants to become the world's policeman. Who will be its conscience?
