(NYASATIMES) Malawi leader challenges World Bank, EU on agriculture subsidy

COMMENT - This is another reason why African nations should not count on the so-called 'donor aid' and start taxing the hell out of the mines, so they have billions of dollars available for economic diversification. This is a national security issue, because when these donor funds stop making it to Africa, or if their currencies become subject to high or hyperinflation, those funds will be worthless, and we will not have functioning economy to show for it, or to take up the slack of stopped donor projects. People and our leadership need to start thinking ahead and have the future of the nation in mind, not their own pocketbooks and retirement schemes.

Malawi leader challenges World Bank, EU on agriculture subsidy
By Nyasa Times
Published: September 27, 2010

Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika has said his government will continue to “fight” the World Bank against its advice on the farm input subsidy programme.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick speaking at the Ford Foundation in New York during a debate organised by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) called for elimination of subsidies.

“I think we should eliminate agriculture subsidies,” he said.

European Union Commissioner for Development Andrew Piebalgs said a lot of EU nations are feeling the pinch on global economic crisis and would not be contributing effectively to agriculture subsidy in developing countries.

In his reaction, Malawi President who was on the panel together with World Bank president said agricultural sector in the West developed over the years because of subsidies and that he will not stop them in Malawi.

“You had your agriculture develop over the years probably 60, 70, 80 years under subsidy,” he said during the debate monitored by Nyasa Times on this link: http://www.africanews.it/english/bbc-world-debate-on-mdgs-with-president-mutharika/

“Africa is not going to make it without subsidies and we will have them with or without your support,” he said.

Mutharika said poor farmers in Malawi have appealed to him to continue with subsidy.

“Let me tell you that about three weeks ago I got a bunch of women, about five or six of them, who came to me and said ‘ Mr. President for all our lives we have been toiling on our plots of land, we have never got more than two bags of maize of 50 kg each,” he said.

“After the cheap fertilizer which was subsidized, they are saying they are getting 15 to 17 bags each which means they can now even manage to sell. And you come and say we don’t want subsides,” said Mutharika.

Malawi President added: “We have been fighting the World Bank for over subsidy and we will continue to fight them.”

“And believe me, whether or not we get support from the west, subsidies will continue until such time when I feel my people can generate their own incomes to fund the prices of fertilizers. And they can withdraw from our countries.”

Under the subsidy programme launched five years ago, farmers are given seeds, fertiliser and advice on sowing techniques.

President Mutharika prides himself that with the programme Malawi has moved from being reliant on food aid to becoming a net exporter of maize.

This year, distribution of fertiliser and seed coupons under the programme will begin in the first week of October according to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Margaret Roka Mauwa. (Reporting by Thom Chiumia, Nyasa Times)