Climate change affects Malawi crops, Oxfam reveals

Climate change has destroyed once-fertile lands in the African nation of Malawi and continues to have an adverse effect on the lives of rural people, it has been claimed.

According to Nicole Johnston, Oxfam regional media and communications officer for southern Africa, changes in weather patterns are strongly affecting farmers’ ability to yield good crops, with rain coming sparsely or in excess.

Some have turned to felling trees in order to ship them to China, due to failing crops and unpredictable conditions.

Paulo Mkaka, a resident of the small village of Balaka in Malawi, told the charity: “We get less crops which means we end up cutting more trees to sell because we can’t grow enough food to eat.”

Another villager added that the region has flooded every year since 2002, making it hard to tend to croplands due to crocodiles.

Some 14 per cent of people in Malawi are HIV positive, the charity reports.

In other news, Oxfam awarded a Malawian youth group a new award for a publication about HIV.

YouthNet and Counselling explored the links between HIV and mental illness in August, concluding that there was a strong two-way relationship between the conditions, an observation that won the organisation the first Susie Smith Memorial Prize.

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