Permaculture, Final Capstone Paper 5-26, Hope - Never Ending Food

A. SNAPSHOT MALAWI
Lying south of the equator, Malawi is a landlocked country sharing borders with
Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia. It is 900 kilometers long and ranges in width from 80 to
161 kilometers (UNDP, 2007) . Lake Malawi is the world’s ninth largest lake making up nearly
one fifth of the nations land area and, along with altitude, the lake heavily influences Malawi’s
warm tropical climate.
The country is divided into 27 districts within the Northern, Central and Southern
Regions. The districts are subdivided into Traditional Authorities (TA’s), which are governed by
chiefs. Traditional Authorities are comprised of villages, the smallest administrative unit, and
are governed by village headmen. Before gaining independence in 1964, Malawi was under
British Colonial rule from 1891. In 1994, Malawi became a multi-party democracy adopting a
poverty reduction strategy including a neo-liberal market economy as well as mandating free and
compulsory primary school education.
Agriculture is the most critical sector of the Malawian economy as it consists of nearly 40
percent of the GDP, employs 85 percent of work force and provides an estimated 64% of the
total income of rural Malawians (UNDP, 2007). In 2005, over 90 percent of Malawi’s foreign
exchange earnings were a result of tobacco, tea, and sugar production. (FAO, 2005; MoA, 2005)
In addition to being the foundation of the economy, between 85-90% are subsistence farmers and
rely on agriculture for their daily food intake (MoA, 2005). Between 70% and 80% of arable
land in Malawi is under maize production (Sauer, Tchale & Wobst, 2006; Peters 1999), with
maize constituting 90% of cereal production and, in turn, making Malawians, the highest per
capita consumers of maize in the world at148 kgs. per capita per annum (Sauer, Tchale & Wobst,
2006).
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