Watch this video on the food crisis and how the country of Malawi faced it. Its only three minutes long, and it’s worth the watch. You have to watch an advertisement in the begining though.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#27932835
What is striking about this story is not only the booming success of what used to be one of the poorest countries in the world, but how the government of Malawi decided to go against the advice of Western countries, and try something no one had done before. By giving out 5 million dollars in fertilizer, they brought in record crops, and in an amazing domino effect, boosted their economy, their long term agriculture, their education programs, and their overall well-being. You see in one part of the clip, a small business, doing well, a tell tale sign of a strong economy. And just the fact that the farmers have enough money to buy luxury food items like fruit and vegetables, is an incredible jump from what it used to be like.
This is an amazing example for countries all over the world. With a mixture of droughts, desertification, and all around soil degeneration (the gradual diminishing of soil fertility, or how well it grows crops, to a point of uselessness), this gutsy move proved to work in more ways than just agriculturally. It brought a country out from what seemed to be a long road of poverty and turmoil, and it may be able to help many more countries like Malawi. The question really is, do we need to rethink our advice to poor countries? And when our economy is doing so horribly, can learn something from the fresh young countries of the world.
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These days, I only hear stories about how countries in Africa are struggling, never about how they are prospering and improving their country. In these perilous times, it is a dangerous choice to risk what the Malawi government did. On top of that, this story is kind of a slap to the US. Here we were telling the Malawi government not to make this choice. They went against what we said and it ended up doing great things for the country. This just proves that our government's knowledge and influence is not all-mighty.
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