1、pps9ILO/SAMAT Policy Paper No. 9Agriculture, Employment and Poverty in MalawiThandika MkandawireInternational Labour OrganizationSouthern Africa Multidisciplinary Advisory Team (ILO/SAMAT)Harare, Zimbabwe1999Copyright and ISBN pageILO/SAMAT Policy Paper Series1. Labour Standards in Export Processing
2、 Zones: A Southern African PerspectiveJoost Kooijmans, David Tajgman and Aurelio Parisotto, 19962. Shaping a Labour Market Based Training Policy for LesothoTorkel Alfthan and Theo Sparreboom, 19973. The Social Protection of Migrant Workers in South AfricaElaine Fultz and Bodhi Pieris, 19974. Labour
3、Migration to South Africa in the 1990sILO/SAMAT, 19985. Industrial Relations in Southern Africa: The Challenge of ChangeTayo Fashoyin, 19986. Definitions and Legal Provisions on Child Labour in Southern AfricaJoost Kooijmans, 19987. Employment Injury Schemes in Southern Africa: An Overview and Propo
4、sals for Future DirectionsElaine Fultz and Bodhi Pieris, 19988. Occupational Health and Safety in Southern Africa: Trends and Policy IssuesRene Loewenson, 19999. Agriculture, Employment and Poverty in MalawiThandika Mkandawire, 1999PrefaceI am pleased to present this latest contribution to the SAMAT
5、 Policy Paper Series entitled Agriculture, Employment and Poverty in Malawi. This paper was prepared in the context of a larger exercise that studied the challenges of promoting productive jobs in Malawi.The objective of this paper is to review the evolution of agriculture in Malawi in a historical
6、perspective and consider policy measures that have recently been effected, or options that are available to promote growth and equity in the rural sector. The author emphasises, in particular, the need for land reform, improvements in productivity, diversification, and a variety of other types of re
7、forms as well as conditions under which such reforms are likely to lead to desired outcomes. SAMAT Policy Papers focus on policies and strategies that are pursued and developed in Southern Africa which affect labour standards, employment, and other labour issues. The series is intended to provide an
8、 ILO perspective on such issues, with a view to suggesting ideas and alternatives that can be taken into account by policy makers in the fields of labour and development. In this way, the Policy Papers aim to provide a basis for technical cooperation between the ILO and its constituents in southern
9、Africa.This paper was prepared by Dr. Thandika Mkandawire, Director, United Nations Research Institute for Social development, Geneva, Switzerland.Peter Peek,Director,ILO/SAMATTable of contentsPreface iv1. Resource base 11.1 Human resources 11.2 Natural resources 12. Historical overview of policies
10、22.1 Labour reserve syndrome 22.2 Promotion of estate agriculture 42.2.1 Land policy 42.2.2 Commodity markets and surplus extraction 62.2.3 Labour markets 62.2.4 Tenancy system 82.2.5 Finance 92.2.6 Political regimentation 92.2.7 Tax regime 92.3 Effects 92.4 Smallholder sector 103. Economic performa
11、nce 113.1 Overall growth 113.2 Social performance and human resources 144. New Government initiatives 144.1 Elimination of institutional constraints 144.2 Productivity enhancement 174.3 Irrigation 174.4 Directed credit and subsidies 184.5 Urban employment and the informal sector 215. Recommendations
12、 225.1 Responsiveness of poverty to growth 235.2 Land reform 245.3 Improvement in productivity 245.4 Diversification 255.5 Marketing reforms 265.6 Non-farm activities 275.7 Urbanization and urban employment 285.8 Human capital 295.9 Labour markets and minimum wages 295.10 Further institutional refor
13、ms 315.11 The role of women 31Bibliography 33List of tables1. Number of estates and hectarage, 1970-89 52. Changes in the nature of landholding, 1967-88 53. Estimates of land utilization on estates 54. Land use 65. Formal sector wage employment 76. Size distribution of smallholdings and proportion p
14、lanted to hybrid 127. Household by landholding size and fertiliser use 128. Sources of agricultural growth in Malawi, 1973-96 139. Agricultural production by principal crops, 1993-97 1510. Malnutrition indicators in Malawi and selected other African countries 15List of Figures1. Real minimum wages i
15、n rural and urban areas, 1970-92 82. Agricultural labour productivity, 1962-93 123. Sectoral shares in agricultural GDP, 1973-92 134. Nutrients on smallholder maize 215. Urbanization in Africa 22Agriculture plays an important role in the economy of Malawi. Eighty-five per cent of the economically ac
16、tive population is in agriculture, 35 per cent of the GDP stems from this sector, and 90 per cent of foreign exchange earnings are due to agricultural exports. More significantly for this study, agriculture supplies labour to the non-agricultural sector and basically determines its reservation price
17、 of labour. Consequently, it is impossible to devise sustainable employment and wage policies in the non-agricultural sector without taking full account of developments in agriculture.1. Resource base1.1 Human resourcesMalawi is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa with an estimated
18、 density of 90 persons per square kilometre. This national average conceals sharp district and regional variations. The population is highly concentrated in the Southern Region, which accounts for around 50 per cent of the population. The Centre and the North have 39 and 11 per cent, respectively. S
19、ome districts in the Southern and Central regions record densities of between 260-460 persons per square kilometre. On the other hand, in North Rumphi the density is only 16. The growth rate of the population estimated at 3.5 per cent per annum remains high. Some 85 per cent of the population live i
20、n rural areas, making Malawi one of the least urbanized countries in Africa. The labour force participation rate the proportion of the population that is economically active was 43 per cent in 1987. Only a small percentage of the labour force is employed in the formal sector as wage labourers or ten
21、ants. Significantly, and unusually for an African country, the overwhelming majority of wage labourers or tenants is in agriculture. Because of the neglect of primacy education and adult literacy, Malawi has high levels of illiteracy. Forty-three per cent of the adult population is illiterate. Adult
22、 illiteracy among women is, at 58 per cent, even higher (UNDP, 1997).1.2 Natural resourcesAlthough a number of minerals are known to exist in Malawi, mining constitutes a negligible activity, at least when compared to most of her Southern African neighbours.There is considerable controversy over how
23、 much land is arable and, even more sharply, over how much of the arable land is utilized or under-utilized. Although there has been significant degradation of fertility over the years, the soils in Malawi are considered fairly good and allow for the cultivation of a wide range of crops. However, po
24、pulation densities and farming practices (especially the cutting down of wood for curing tobacco) threaten the fertility of soils as deforestation.A defining geographical feature of Malawi is Lake Malawi. And yet Malawian agriculture is heavily dependent on rainfall, a source of vulnerability brough
25、t home by recent droughts. Malawi has an estimated 290,000 ha of potentially irrigable land. Only 25,000 ha of this total are irrigated, mostly in the estate sector and mainly for sugar. The potential of irrigation is suggested by the fact that this irrigated land already accounts for close to 10 pe
26、r cent of the countrys exports.Malawi is a landlocked country. This fact places a premium on high valued crops to compensate for the relatively high transportation costs the country faces and also on the important role that regional markets can serve. On the import side, being landlocked argues for
27、import substitution or self-sufficiency in low value, bulky imports. 2. Historical overview of policies2.1 Labour reserve syndromeOne remarkable feature of Malawi was that at independence neither peasant or smallholder agriculture nor large-scale commercial agriculture were developed, at least when
28、compared to the smallholder-based agriculture of most West African countries or the large-scale farming of Kenya and the then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Many factors accounted for this lack of development, some of which impinge on the structure and performance of the agricultural sector to th
29、is very day.On the one hand, was the labour “reserve” status assigned to rural Malawi both with respect to estate farming in Malawi and the Southern African regional markets. This meant that instead of being a source of cash crop production, rural Malawi was treated as essentially the “reserve” from
30、 which estate agriculture in Malawi and the mines and plantations in South Africa and the then Rhodesias could draw their labour. Having accepted this status for the rural sector of the colony, the colonial government was in no particular hurry to develop peasant agriculture until much later in the
31、post-World War II era when “Colonial Development and Welfare” programmes were initiated. On the other hand, colonial paternalism and the peculiarities of settler agriculture in Malawi stifled the expansion of commercial agriculture. Caught between models of peasant-based agriculture export and settl
32、er agriculture, the colonial authorities simply never resolved the problem. The consequence was a poorly developed White settler commercial farming and a subsistence economy whose monetization was largely based on remittances from workers in South Africa and the mines in the two Rhodesias. Policy pronouncements by the nationalists were clear on the need for stimulating peasant agriculture if problems of pover
