COMPARISON OF CROP ESTIMATES FROM 2022 TO 2024 IN MALAWI

Malawi Government under the Ministry of Agriculture each & every year releases the crop estimates of Maize production during the farming season so that the country can have a picture on how much will be harvested. Sometimes the estimates did not depict true reflection of what is on the ground.

In the year 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture released a crop estimate report which indicated that the country was expected to produce 3.8 million metric tones of maize out of its required 3.3 million metric tones representing a 0.5 million metric tones surplus. But according to an agricultural expert Tamani Nkhono Mvula, there is need for an improvement in the way the country conducts its agriculture production estimation survey claiming that the findings does not give a true picture of what is on the ground or at household level. Mvula said despite being projected in the previous two years (2020 & 2021) that the country was to have surplus in its maize harvest, there were also reports of food deficits at household level. He then called on authorities to avoid concentrating on solely in painting a national picture in its crop estimates ignoring the household picture. According to Mvula, the government needs to improve the way they conduct their crop estimates surveys because what is given to Malawians by the ministry of Agriculture is contrary to what citizens see & face in their day to day life because though the 2022 crop estimates report indicate the surplus of 0.5 million metric tones but there were still hunger reports.

While in the year 2023 in February, the Ministry released the crop estimates for the maize production which showed that the country was supposed to register a decline of the harvest with about 4.1%. The Ministry’s director of planning, Dr Rodwell Mzonde said that unlike in the year 2022 when the staple food output was over 3.7 million metric tones, while 2023 estimates was slightly above 3.5 million metric tones. Mzonde was however quick to dispel any possible hunger threat in the country arguing the maize output is still expected to be with some minimal surplus of the country’s total food requirement adding the ministry intends to intensify winter cropping to mitigate possible food deficits. But according to Agriculture expert from the Lilongwe University of Agriculture & Natural Resources (LUANAR), Horace Phiri, said that the estimates were a work up call for government to devise other strategies of ensuring maize availability in the country. In this farming season, there was a decrease in crop (maize) production as compared to the previous farming season of 2021-2022 & this brought negative impacts to the citizens because they experienced prolonged hunger (there was food insecurity in the country). While in the year 2024, the ministry of agriculture released the crop estimates report which projected an increase in maize production & other crops. The ministry projected maize production to be 3,608 862 metric tones representing a 2.8% increase as compared to 3,509 837 metric tones in the 2022-2023 crop estimates. According to the ministry, rice is projected at 33%, sorghum at 6.3% & wheat at 94.7%; with groundnuts, pigeon peas, cow peas & sunflower production also projected to be in while soya bean & cotton production will drop by 7.2% & 23.0% respectively for various reasons.

After looking at the crop estimates for the 3 consecutive years, it shows that 2 of these 3 farming seasons, their crop estimates were higher than the other one which shows that the production was low. Bringing it to the real life situation, this translate that in the year 2021-2022 farming season & 2023-2024 there were at least more food though not enough to feed the whole population of the country, while in the year 2022-2023 the production means that the country harvested less than the required amount of metric tones needed to feed the country & this lead to serious disasters of hunger (food insecurity). So in general, the crop estimates for all the 3 farming season does not reflect the real life situation being experienced by the citizens (the producers of the crops). This is so because the people who are responsible for doing the surveys of crop estimates they don’t visit or carry their duties in the remote areas (in the typical rural) but instead they do their surveys in the urban areas across Malawi & this cannot give the country true picture of the estimates because most of the times crops that do well are mostly in remote areas. Although the country produces more in some years, ironically the country has been experiencing food insecurity for almost 15 previous years. This means that as a country we are not progressing in terms of curbing hunger although the government pumps a lot of money on the Affordable Input Program (AIP) to end food insecurity but it is not helping at all. Therefore, the government need to migrate to other helpful ways to end the food insecurity in Malawi.