Not surprisingly, we are where we were fifty years ago, if not worse. It has been a trend that, as a country, we move backwards or in cycles.
Every regime that comes with promises of hope repeats the same mistakes and take us into even worse spaces of destitution.
Sixty years after independence, Malawians are still dying from hunger, and yet we claim to be an agro-based economy.
We go around preaching that illusion when reality laughs in our faces. We are not even ashamed that we can’t practice what we preach.
In all honesty, there is no excuse for our country to be struggling with food in 2024. Malawi is a land blessed with natural resources that can support agriculture all year long.
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We are not only endowed with arable land and a good climate. The gods went an extra mile to give us fresh water in abundance and different varieties of crops and livestock that thrive on our land.
The only thing that is lacking to utilise these resources is the willingness to do so for it should not even take a genius to take advantage of what we have.
But despite all these blessings, we were cursed with leaders who do not want to lead us towards the right direction.
As we speak, the government is panicking – talking about how maize should be distributed because people have started dying of hunger.
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A few days ago, news had it that people in Machinga have resorted to eating buffalo beans to survive. Now, knowing buffalo beans, one would be tempted to think that this is a metaphor meant for hyperbole, but this is the reality on the ground.
People are that desperate and needy. This is despite the fact that scientists had already told us that there would be hunger this year and that our annual yield would drop by more than 22 percent.
The question is: why are we panicking then when we had all this information on our desks in those big air-conditioned offices?
The answers are simple. Firstly, for a long time, we have used hunger as a political tool at the expense of lives of people.
Imagine if the government made the right investments in agriculture such that hunger was eliminated. What are they going to tell people in their next campaign?
What would be a political campaign without distributing food, fertilizer, and other affordable farm inputs?
For a campaign to be impactful, we need the president to be driven in his opulent Toyota Landcruiser to the remotest areas on the land to appreciate the suffering of people who are dying of hunger.
He should visit our local markets, again to appreciate the price of one kilogramme of maize. From there, he should get into character and act on stage – performing his anger at how people are dying and how he will change that when we vote for him. Now that is a perfect campaign for you.
By now, we have also realised that the issue of megafarms is but pet talk. Yes, the president has travelled with his bloated entourage to a few places to open this or that megafarm, but how many years has it taken them to hold these groundbreaking ceremonies?
This regime promised us megafarms four years ago and we are yet to see any fruit from those promises, or is it farms?
They are busy visiting those farms today and we know that their opening will be big talk during the campaign, which is just around the corner.
They will tell us of how they want to continue with this dream. Dare you not remove them from office! Hunger is a winning bait, trust you me.
We cannot talk about ending hunger and profiting from agriculture when we literally fail to capitalise on the resources we already have. Why is it that we love to talk so much instead of just doing the right thing?
A country with serious intentions of capitalising on agriculture cannot, at the same time, be sending its qualified youth in agriculture to work in Israel.
With that brain drain, who is going to work on our megafarms? Politicians have killed us because for them, this is just a game.
There is no reason for Malawians to be dying of hunger today. The only problem is that men and women in suits play too much in this country.
