For the Love of Malawi: Why I'm Fasting for Climate Action

Buildings at Maoni Orphanage damaged by flooding

Last month, climate change got personal. This year I have been fasting on the first of every month in solidarity with the victims of climate change, from the Philippines to Vanuatu but it was the stories from my friends in Malawi which have absolutely broken my heart. This year, Malawi and Mozambique have been hit by serious flooding on a scale rarely seen before in the country’s history. 
 
Two members of my church (Acomb Methodist Church) run a charity called Madalitso providing education and training for young people in Malawi, and almost everything has been destroyed. The orphanage we fundraised for ages to help build has been damaged (see photo), and thousands of people have lost their homes, possessions and crops. Celebrating Fairtrade Fortnight in York, we watched a film telling the stories of two tea farmers in Malawi, who have also found their farms devastated by the floods.

Powerful floodwaters left little still standing for
our friends at Maoni Orphanage

But it’s not just flooding that’s the problem. Erratic weather patterns and prolonged dry spells may sound much less dramatic - but they're quietly wrecking the lives of millions of farmers. For a country with an agricultural economy that depends on rainfall to feed themselves, the lack of rain at the right time can be as devastating as floods. Last year, we prayed with our Malawian friends for rain to fall at the right time so they could plant their crops. The problem is that you need to plant knowing that it will rain in the next two or three days. If it doesn’t rain when you need it to, you can lose your seed, and many people who are already poor find themselves buying and planting two or three times more seed just to try and get a crop. 
Yet, once-dependable rainfall has become increasingly erratic. Nearly every year now, it seems some part of the country is hit with a serious dry spell. Christian Aid partner Eagles Relief and Development sets up pumps to irrigate crops near rivers. But with changing rainfall patterns, rivers are drying up. That means no more fish, an important source of protein. And as temperatures rise, crop yields are expected to fall. ERD have created some innovative ways to mitigate this problem using texts to provide weather forecasts to farmers so that they know when they can plant, but project director Victor Mughogho still says:

“We actually alternate between droughts and floods — so, moving from one extreme to the other. Malawi’s agriculture and farming systems have been completely altered. Adaptation to climate change in our context is a matter of life and death. It's not an option."

Farmland was wrecked and there will be no crop this year
for many struggling farmers who have also lost all their
belongings and their homes

In fact, small-scale producers who provide more than half the world`s food supply and 70% of the food which feeds people in poor countries are already being impacted by climate change. In just the next couple of decades, the World Bank says, farmers across Africa could lose more than half their cropland to drought and heat.

Climate change is not just a problem affecting polar bears. This is a crisis, undermining all our efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and we need to act now. I’ll be writing more about the action side of things in later posts, but the place to start with prayer and with fasting to build my own personal commitment to those in Malawi, the Philippines and Vanuatu who are now starving and homeless due to our carbon pollution. Will you join me next month? And will you come to London to lobby your MP for effective climate action on 17th June?

See also:

• Lobby your MP for climate action
• Pray and Fast for the Climate - resources and prayers to inspire you each month
• Ruth Valerio on why we should pray, fast and act for the climate
• Why Treading Lightly? My motivations for acting on climate change 
•