This New York Times article explains the secret of Malawi’s recent record-breaking corn harvests. After a disastrous harvest in 2005 that forced 5 million of Malawi’s 13 million people to rely on emergency food aid, President Bingu wa Mutharika decided to reinstate fertilizer subsidies, a practice that many Western countries rely on themselves yet discourage poor countries like Malawi from doing. 

In the 1980s and again in the 1990s, the World Bank pushed Malawi to eliminate fertilizer subsidies entirely. Its theory both times was that Malawi’s farmers should shift to growing cash crops for export and use the foreign exchange earnings to import food, according to Jane Harrigan, an economist at the University ofLondon. Malawi’s leaders have long favored fertilizer subsidies, but they reluctantly acceded to donor prescriptions, often shaped by foreign-aid fashions in Washington, that featured a faith in private markets and an antipathy to government intervention.

This foreign advice to remove the subsidies on fertilizer failed to understand that improving Africa’s poor soil quality was essential to lifting food production. Frustrated and embarrassed by having to rely on other countries for charity to feed his people, President wu Matharika decided to take matters into his own hands by reinstating subsidies. Malawi’s successful use of fertilizer subsidies has lead to a reappraisal of the importance of agriculture in alleviating poverty. 

“The rest of the world is fed because of the use of good seed and inorganic fertilizer, full stop,” said Stephen Carr, who has lived in Malawi since 1989, when he retired as theWorld Bank’s principal agriculturalist in sub-Saharan Africa. “This technology has not been used in most of Africa. The only way you can helpfarmers gain access to it is to give it away free or subsidize it heavily.”

Farmers interviewed recently in Malawi’s southern and central regions said fertilizer had greatly improved their ability to fill their bellies with nsima, the thick, cornmeal porridge that is Malawi’s staff of life.

The harvest has also helped the poor by lowering food prices and increasing wages for farm workers. While bank officials in Malawi generally approve of the subsidies, they criticize the government for not having a strategy to end the subsidies and say there is still room for improvement.

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