Land use and extension services at Wovwe Rice Scheme, Malawi

Abstract

Over the last one-and-half decades Malawi has experienced frequent food shortages due to droughts, the effects of the influx of refugees from neighbouring Mozambique, and official policies that emphasised export-oriented cash crop production. To enhance the country's food security, and to give increased opportunities to small farmers, there has been a shift to small-scale irrigation schemes in selected areas of the country. Evidence from a rice scheme in the northern part of the country suggests that small-scale irrigated operations are characterised by high turnover rates, seasonal variations in patronage, under-utilisation of the key facilities provided, and incessant political tensions. They create fissures in the social structures and in the traditional farming systems. This article thus concludes that small-scale irrigated schemes cannot be regarded simplistically as a panacea to food security and increased agricultural production at the local community levels. The argument that the small operations result in the fast delivery of services may also be exaggerated. In fact, they are quite bureaucratic, and associated with the state's patronising attitude and control of resources.