MALAWI:In the village of Bembeke, they call it the Irish potato. Here, like everywhere else in Malawi, the Irish label is what locals use to differentiate between paler fleshed tubers and the orange hues of the more indigenous sweet potato.
For the people of Bembeke, whose neat potato drills lie next to fields of tall green maize, the Irish potato holds the promise of a better future. Last December, they agreed a fixed-price contract with a potato crisp factory in Malawi's capital Lilongwe. "The farmers will get 45 kwacha (21 cent) per kilo of potatoes," says Lughano Tomoka, a crops official with the district agriculture office. "That's a very good price."
There are many reasons why growing potatoes makes more sense than cultivating the more traditional maize crop in Bembeke. Providing both food and income for locals, potatoes are more nutritious, less labour-intensive and, most importantly, grow faster. "We now harvest potatoes three times a year," says one local farmer. "That means we have food for the hungry season."
Members of Ireland's Hunger Taskforce are visiting Bembeke to see how a project run by the Peru-based International Potato Centre (known by its Spanish acronym, CIP), is helping farmers develop potato production as one step towards achieving food security.
Director of CIP Pamela Anderson is one of 15 Irish and international experts on the taskforce, a body set up by the Irish Government to identify how the State can best contribute to international efforts to tackle the causes of food insecurity, particularly in Africa.
In a report due later this year, the taskforce will recommend how Ireland's bilateral aid programme and its partnerships can be strengthened and refocused to address the issue of hunger. It will also suggest ways in which Ireland can take a leadership role in global advocacy.
Chaired by former minister for agriculture Joe Walsh, the taskforce has met twice already - in Cork and Dublin. It was decided it would also convene in a country receiving bilateral support from Irish Aid, the Government's overseas development division, says Irish Ambassador to Malawi Liam MacGabhann. Last year, Malawi was selected to become Irish Aid's ninth programme country. With its history of persistent chronic food shortages, the landlocked country is also a perfect test case to examine the causes of hunger. Malawi is ranked 164th out of 177 on the United Nations' Human Development Index, and more than 35 per cent of its population are undernourished.
The CIP project is one of several related to nutrition, social protection and agricultural research visited by taskforce members during their three-day stay. At each stop, they ask questions on women's participation, sustainability, and plans for expansion. The Bembeke potato project touches on two of the issues earmarked as priorities by the taskforce - agricultural productivity and nutrition.
Back in Lilongwe, there are meetings with NGOs, civil society groups, government officials and private sector representatives before the taskforce sits down to their third meeting. It ends with a general consensus on the outline of the report the taskforce is due to present to the Government in June. "It will focus on two key elements," says Joe Walsh. "The need to increase agricultural productivity and the crisis of under-nutrition."
The taskforce also agreed to set up a subgroup to examine initiatives in the field of nutrition, he adds. It will meet again in Dublin on May 13th.
Many on the taskforce stress the need for challenging the status quo, politically and in terms of trade. "Donor countries often focus on the 10 per cent who are actually dying of hunger but the other 90 per cent suffering from persistent food insecurity are more problematic because that issue may have more to do with the donor countries' own policies of trade and aid," says Sheila Sisulu, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme.
"The issue of global hunger needs a champion and the Irish Government could take a leadership role at the forefront of a message that may go against vested trade interests."
Justin Kilcullen, director of Trócaire, says the taskforce should be robust in its recommendations. "We have to challenge and cause a certain degree of discomfort. It is important that the issue of political will is addressed."