Ending Famine in Malawi

In the New York Times of Sunday, December 02, 2007, it was reported that the East African nation of Malawi, after years of perennially extending the begging bowl to the world to feed her people, is now instead feeding its hungry neighbors, selling more corn to the World Food Program of the United Nations than any other country in Southern Africa. In the 1980s and again in the 1990s, the World Bank pushed Malawi to eliminate fertilizer subsidies entirely. The Bank's theories both times was that Malawi's farmers should shift to growing cash crops for export and use the foreign exchange earnings to import food. In other words, the people of Malawi were to grow flowers for decorating middle class family homes in the developed world whilst the people died of starvation. The time has long passed when people in government on the African continent start thinking of what is good for the citizens instead of listening to technical experts who have no clues as to what pertains in local communities. I am also reminded that if South Korea had not gone against the advice of the World Bank in the 1950s, that country would not have become the industrial giant it is today.