Economy & Industry
Agriculture still the mainstay
Malawi’s economy revolves around agriculture, which brings in more than 80 percent of the country’s export earnings and supports well over 80 percent of the population. Manufacturing in this small landlocked country is minimal.
Most industry is based in or around the commercial city of Blantyre in the south.
Economy
In this video... Joyce talks about how Malawi is developing – how its food security, roads, buildings and industries are developing; and how the president has a vision for the future.
While maize is grown as the staple food for home consumption, the country’s export trade is dominated by tobacco, tea, cotton, coffee and sugar.
Tea is Malawi’s second largest export crop and is grown mostly in the southern districts of Thyolo and Mulanje.
Mining developments
Increasingly, other sectors outside of agriculture are playing a part in Malawi’s growing economy. For example, the mining industry is becoming more important – Malawi has deposits of uranium, coal and bauxite. A new uranium mine (Kayelekera) opened in 2009 and is expected to generate around 150 million dollars of revenue each year.
Tobacco trade
Malawi is one of the top ten producers of tobacco. However if the economy is too dependent on this harvest, a bad year weather-wise can mean a significant hit in earnings.
Tobacco trade
In this video... Porters push trolleys at a major tobacco auction house in Malawi, as bags of tobacco are bought and sold.
Large tobacco buyers also exploit small-scale producers, paying them a poor price for their crop. This has led to some farmers relying on the use of child labour (which is illegal in Malawi).
An estimated 80,000 children work to harvest the tobacco crop in Malawi. Without protective clothing, they are exposed to the nicotine of the tobacco leaves through their skin. This causes green tobacco sickness (or nicotine poisoning) which results in headaches, stomach pain, coughing and breathlessness. The children also miss important school time and risk failing their exams.
Despite the large-scale business, you see very few Malawians smoking tobacco. It is estimated that 90 percent of the Malawi tobacco crop is exported, mostly to the US.
Tobacco accounts for around 80% of Malawi's earnings from its agricultural exports.
Economic restraints
Malawi’s economy has grown by an average of seven percent over the last five years. However, there are a number of factors holding back economic development, such as an unreliable supply of electricity, weak staffing in public services and land constraints.
Many farmers are locked into subsistence-style farming on small plots (the average farmer cultivates less than half a hectare of land).
Fewer than one in 10 Malawians have access to electricity services.
Over the last decade, farmers have been provided with subsidies for fertiliser and higher-yielding hybrid seeds. This policy has boosted food output, though the approach may be unaffordable going into the future. Farmers have also been encouraged to diversify away from tobacco.
