Starter Packs in Malawi: can the successes be repeated?

Many people in rural Malawi produce their own food, but one third of smallholder farmers are extremely food insecure. The Starter Pack programme helped to achieve national food security in its first two years but funding was then cut back: a major factor behind Malawi’s food crisis in 2002.

Between 1998 and 2004, the Malawiangovernment and international donors implemented the Starter Pack programme.This programme supplied a small amount of free seed and fertiliser to everyrural smallholder farmer in the country. Malawi is highly dependent on onecrop: over three-quarters of all food produce is maize. The Starter Packprogramme found a clear relationship between crop diversity and improved foodsecurity; farmers grew a range of crops to ensure food supply during the monthsbefore the maize harvest.

After creating a hugeincrease in maize production between 1998 and 2000 and increasing the diversityof crops, the programme was then reduced so that only half of the country’ssmallholder farmers received the pack. Research from the University of Reading,UK and the Overseas Development Institute, UK, reviews how the experience couldimprove agricultural policies in Malawi and other developing countries.

The researchers found:

• In the first fewyears, the Starter Pack provided enough food for the whole country.
• The inclusion oflegume seeds to improve soil conditions was essential, despite decisions aboutwhich type being based on logistical considerations rather than scientificanalysis.
• While originalproposals for Starter Pack included measures to promote sustainableagriculture, such as crop diversification and crop rotation, the focus on maizediluted these benefits.
• The funding process,negotiated year-by-year, undermined its long-term potential.
• Decisions takenin response to practical problems, such as the failure to specify seedrequirements 12 to 15 months prior to distribution, also undermined itssuccess.
• Farmers wereunable to test and adapt the fertilisers and technologies in the pack.

The lack of a sustainable agricultural strategy inMalawi has directly contributed to recurrent food crises. A repeat of theStarter Pack programme has the potential to promote such a strategy, but willfirst require strong institutional support. For a repeat of the programme, inMalawi or other countries, the Starter Pack programme will need changes:

• It should be seenas a medium- to long-term programme planned over five to ten years, rather thanyear by year.
• Packs shouldinclude seed types other than maize.
• Farmers need arange of technology and fertiliser options.
• Farmers shouldhave more involvement in testing and evaluating the technologies and fertilisersavailable.
• The programmeshould combine crop growth with poverty reduction strategies for rural areas, basedon developing the income-generating activities of smallholder farmers.
• The programmemust reach enough farmers to provide food security, however remote their farms.
• The long-termdeterioration in soil fertility must be addressed.