Hundreds of farmers were gathered under the village\u2019s biggest wild mango tree, summoned by the chief, when the government workers arrived with a dire warning. Drought was soon likely to hit. The farmers had better prepare.<\/p>\n
The cause, they said, is this year\u2019s extraordinarily powerful El Ni\u00f1o, a global weather phenomenon born in the Pacific Ocean, half a world away from their village of Namasoko, Malawi, in southern Africa.<\/p>\n
If the farmers bought special drought-resistant seeds, they might be able to avoid hunger and financial despair. But a single bag costs $43. And most farmers make less than $3 per day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are we to do?\u201d asked Patrick Hareke, 46, one of the farmers.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a question being asked across the developing world.<\/p>\n
Preparing for El Ni\u00f1o is daunting even in good times. The natural phenomenon scrambles global weather<\/a> in ways that are both predictable and economically devastating. It typically causes droughts in Latin America and southern Africa that hit one group above all: poor farmers who are at the mercy of the skies.<\/p>\n This year, preparation is even tougher. The United States\u2019 war in Iran is making fertilizer<\/a> and fuel much costlier. Deep cuts in international aid by the United States and other countries means that funding to the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa has cratered to the lowest level since the early 2000s.<\/p>\n In June the United Nations launched an El Ni\u00f1o plan to help 22 countries \u2014 including Malawi \u2014 considered particularly vulnerable. But fund-raising shortfalls have prevented work in Malawi and six other nations from starting. And planting season begins now.<\/p>\n Malawi\u2019s government has designed its own El Ni\u00f1o plan<\/a> with dozens of objectives. That\u2019s why government officials were in the village of Namasoko a few weeks ago \u2014 spreading the word about El Ni\u00f1o and telling people to buy the faster-growing corn seeds.<\/p>\n But only about a third of Malawi\u2019s plan is funded. And no money has so far been dedicated to helping farmers buy the seeds they need, one of the plan\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the budget for this is zero\u201d as farmers begin to plant, said Jacob Nyirongo, the chief executive officer of the Farmers Union of Malawi, \u201cyou already know it won\u2019t be enough to make a dent.\u201d<\/p>\n Namasoko is just one among hundreds of Malawian villages dependent on rain-fed agriculture. Several weeks after the meeting under the mango tree, the village chief, Gibson Bonongwe, said he didn\u2019t know one person among Namasoko\u2019s population of 2,860 who had been able to purchase the hybrid seeds. Same with the fertilizer, which costs $115 for a 15-kilogram bag. \u201cThis is a price they cannot afford,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Not for lack of trying. One farmer there, Felix James Mankhanamba, 35, described how he\u2019s been biking to Mozambique \u2014 across an international border \u2014 to buy potatoes that he can sell back in town for about an $8 profit. The ride takes 16 hours round-trip.<\/p>\n Farmers without the special hybrid seeds will most likely plant seeds recycled from their previous harvests. That\u2019s their usual practice. But those seeds don\u2019t have the same predictability or yields.<\/p>\n It could work. But in previous El Ni\u00f1o years, like 2015-16 and 2023-24, it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Those events led to two of Malawi\u2019s worst staple-grain harvests over the past 20 years. In both instances, hunger levels soared.<\/p>\n And this year\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o is emerging as the strongest on record, which could further intensify extreme heat waves, floods and droughts. The International Food Policy Research Institute projects that Malawi could see an extra 4.6 million people<\/a>, or 20 percent of the population, become undernourished.<\/p>\n That helps explain why, one recent afternoon, a van mounted with loudspeakers arrived in Namasoko, its latest stop on a rural seed-selling barnstorming tour. A team in the van were hawking drought resistant seeds from the German-owned brand Dekalb.<\/p>\n \u201cThe climate has changed,\u201d one person said into the microphone, as people walked along the main drag. \u201cThe best seeds are products of Dekalb.\u201d<\/p>\n At first, the reaction was slow. So one of the Dekalb promoters grabbed a passerby, Luka Kamtiki, and staged a little variety show. He asked Mr. Kamtiki, 36, to do some tongue-twisters as a crowd of a dozen grew. Then the promoter reached his hand into the van.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have T-shirts, key holders, seed samples,\u201d he said. \u201cWhich would you prefer?\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Kamtiki smiled. He wore a tattered white shirt, the pocket almost falling off. Later he explained that his last corn harvest had brought in $57 and that he was managing to feed his family of three children only because he spent 12 hours a day riding a bicycle-taxi. But he had lots of land, and to weather a drought, he\u2019d ideally want 30 kilograms of the hybrid seeds.<\/p>\n So Kamtiki requested the seed samples. He walked away with plastic bags holding 200 grams \u2014 less than 1 percent of what he needed.<\/p>\n Preparing for an El Ni\u00f1o requires not just studying where the rain might stop, but knowing which places have already lost their ability to cope. On the United Nations\u2019 map of El Ni\u00f1o risk<\/a>, much of Malawi is colored a burning red.<\/p>\n It is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. The dearth of resources shows up even in an elementary school in Namasoko, where 200 students sit on the floor in front of one teacher. And Malawi has been pummeled by disasters as global temperatures warm.<\/p>\n Cyclone Idai in 2019 damaged 300,000 homes and destroyed half the maize fields in the country\u2019s southern tip. Cyclone Freddy followed four years later, dumping a year\u2019s worth of rain in four days and killing 679 people. Then in 2024, an El Ni\u00f1o-fueled drought prompted the government to declare a state of emergency across much of the country.<\/p>\n Each of these disasters left impossible bills for recovery and reconstruction \u2014 $390 million, $680 million, $446 million \u2014 in a country that spends half of its revenue on debt payments. Malawi now lacks the funds to stock gasoline stations with fuel.<\/p>\n