Agroecology, food sovereignty, and food security: Lessons from Malawi

Background/Question/Methods How should we grow food? There are heated debates about what the best way forward, both in terms of ecological and social outcomes. These questions are critical in Sub-Saharan Africa due to high levels of chronic hunger and undernutrition.  There are several negative environmental effects from current agricultural methods, including land degradation, biodiversity depletion and water pollution. In addition, climate change poses a significant challenge, with climate models for Africa projecting increased rainfall variability, droughts and reduced yields. 

Results/Conclusions

In this study we draw on several ongoing participatory research projects involving  vulnerable farming households in sub-Saharan Africa which aim to improve food security and nutrition using agroecological methods. Farming households carried out agroecological experiments of their own choosing over several years. Baseline and follow-up surveys were conducted to assess changes in farming practices, food security, crop diversity and dietary diversity. Farmers experimented with a range of innovative practices, including intercropping legumes and increasing varietal and crop diversity. Binary logistic regression was done, showing that farmers who use legume residue to manage soil fertility are significantly more likely to be food secure than those who do not. Further, those farmers with greater crop diversity are more likely to be food secure. There are nutritional implications, with farmers who intercrop cereals and legumes more likely to have higher dietary diversity compared to those with monocrops. Finally, in one study there were greater improvements in food security for female-headed households, often considered to be at greater risk of food insecurity. Farmers also discussed the ways in which the approach of farmer experimentation and farmer-to-farmer exchanges increased notions of empowerment and could be considered building food sovereignty. These findings indicate that poor, vulnerable farmers can use diverse cropping systems to effectively improve food and nutritional security while improving biodiversity and soil health in sub-Saharan Africa. This study sheds light on how agroecological approaches that foster food sovereignty can improve rapidly food security even under conditions of acute socio-ecological stress.