The Wise Debate

As the world debates the effectiveness of industrialised agriculture, the good-old small farmer emerges victorious.

- Richard Mahapatra

IN MALAWI, a new farm policy in the making has some lessons for us to understand the debate on whether the small informal agriculture or the organised and corporate-controlled one is suitable to produce food. At its core is the control over seeds. The least-developed African country is adopting a new law to regulate the trade of seeds.

The proposed law indirectly criminalises the informal seed trade among farmers. Many have alleged that the Bayer-owned Monsanto is behind the new law to promote and protect its own patented seeds. Monsanto has already taken over the government-owned seed company.

Malawi’s attempt to favour seed multinationals and to propagate patented and expensive seeds is not an isolated development. One could argue it is rather the preferred policy of most developing and poor countries. But what is of interest is to look at the reasons given to adopt such policies.