Malawi's tobacco machine is lucrative, but limiting.
Yet while farmers are being limited to tobacco, they're not getting much of the cash.
Instead, they're more or less forced to
farm a crop which gets them nowhere
in the long-run. In fact, it often doesn't
even support them for the whole year.
Almost half of non-contract farmers side-sell due to an 'urgent need' for cash, often just to sustain production. |
Side-selling is the (generally unregulated) practice of selling to whomever is willing to buy instead of leaf-buying companies.
This means that they do not even make
enough money to be secure through
growing seasons. Commercial farmers
are little better off.
But they have no choice. Still leaving
Malawians impoverished, tobacco is
more viable than other crops due to
its high price.
So, farmers verging on lethal poverty turn to tobacco with no other options. It manages to keep them afloat, barely. |
Effectively, the tobacco industry has
managed to homogenize the economy
by exploiting need.
Malawian farmers call this:
"Bondage"Because Malawi is overly dependent upon tobacco, inevitable price fluctuations affect hundreds of thousands of farmers. Leaf buyers offset the cost by manipulating buying prices.
|
Farmers are thought to have little opportunity for growth as the tobacco industry expands in place of other, more innovative enterprises.
"Cheating" |
Click on the quotes to go to their source.
Worst of all, this system occupies entire families. Household labor accounts for almost 90% of farmer's labor costs.
% of People Over 15 Who Are Illiterate
Source: CIA World Factbook
The issue of child labor in Malawian tobacco farming is another, well-studied topic you can read more about here. Child labor is said (in the article linked) to reduce children's educational opportunities and negatively affect their health.