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Deforestation, Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture 15

potato and custard apple. Peasant smallholders are vitally concerned with their
own livelihood, especially food security; they have never been rigidly bound by
"tradition", but always open to new ideas both adaptive and innovative.
A strong advocate of a "green revolution" for Africa, and somewhat
disdainful of both organic agriculture and permaculture, like most
agro-economists Stephen Carr has spent a lifetime in Africa. He has worked as
an agricultural advisor for the governments of Sudan and Uganda, as well as a
consultant for the World Bank. Coming to Malawi on his retirement, Carr has
suggested a packet of measures designed to improve the productivity of local
smallholder agriculture. These included encouraging the planting of Vetiver
grass, Vetiveria zizanoides on bunds within the upland gardens to curb both soil
erosion and to provide useful thatching grass, and the planting of camel-thorn
Acacia tree, Msangu, Faidherbia (Acacia) albida on agricultural land. Common
in Malawi, especially at the lower altitudes below 2000ft (600m) msangu is a
majestic tree with a rounded crown and feathery bipinnate leaves. It grows to
around 25m. A valuable tree, its wood is used in the making of canoes and hoe
handles, its powdered pods is a viable fish poison, and it is also widely used as
a medicine for a variety of ailments (Morris 1996: 348). Its value for Carr,
however, is that msangu is a legume with a very deep tap root that brings
nutrients to the surface, and that as a deciduous tree it loses its leaves in the rainy
season. Thus, it does not negatively affect the maize crop. Carr also strongly
advocates the growing of soya beans, especially the variety magoye, in that they
both enhance the fertility of the soil and provide an excellent food, especially for
young children (Carr 2004 187).
Although Carr was initially opposed to the growing of tobacco by
African peasant farmers, as well as the use of fertilizers, as advisor to the World
Bank he came eventually to support both strongly.
During the Banda era (1964-1994) the growing of burley tobacco -
described effusively as "green gold" - had been restricted to the estate sector,
the tobacco farms owned by Europeans or by an African agrarian elite that were
beholden to President Banda. Peasant households were not allowed to grow
burley tobacco, and even the local variety, known as labu (Nicotiana rustica)
was prohibited, on the grounds that it spread tobacco disease. Through the
World Bank, Carr strongly urged the repeal of the Special Crops Act that
forbade the peasant smallholders from cultivating burley tobacco. The
liberation of burley tobacco production in 1994, with the advent of multi-party
democracy, has been described as a "major reform" that was "very successful",
for the growing of burley tobacco was taken up avidly by many peasant
smallholders in the Shire Highlands and elsewhere in Malawi.
Recognized as a "high-value crop" the growing of burley tobacco was
viewed as providing peasant smallholders with a viable source of income (Carr
2004: 154, Blackie and Conroy 2006: 96, E. Chirwa and Dorwood 2013 :67).