Mining & Trade News

A local cooperative union, the Community Savings and Investment Promotion (COMSIP), says it has promoted about 320 legume farmers in the country through its Legume Enterprise and Structure Production (LESP) program, which it kick-started in 2015.

COMSIP says through LESP they have promoted the farmers through offering of loans and matching grants, marketing their produce and teaching them on how they can save their investments.

Cooperate Development and Investment Officer for COMSIP Paul Kamwendo said in the past five years the union has been promoting production of legumes including sugar beans, soya, pigeon peas, groundnuts, rice and others.

Kamwendo said as a capacity building organization promoting savings and investment among groups that do not have accounts with commercial banks, they launched the programme with the understanding that many of union members are farmers and they rely on agribusiness.

He said: “In 2013, we saw that so many groups are looking for market for agricultural products and after doing some research we saw that we could invest and save money in groups but first we were looking at what was coming out of our investment and farming activities.”

“Issues that were hindering us were about market linkages and the financial support, and for that point we introduced the programme called Legume Enterprise and Structured Production (LESP).”

“On financial support, in the first year it was 70% loan and 30% matching grant and the subsequent year it was 50% loan and 50% matching grant while third year it was 30% and 70%.”

“The fourth year, it is 100% grant because they had to graduate in the process than having the same group all the years getting the same percentage of loan and at the same time our basis is to reach many groups other than dwelling on the same group.”

In 2019, COMSIP in collaboration with Harvest Plus, an organization which is fostering and advocating for seed multiplication by fortified seeds, adopted the orange maize Vitamin-A.

Kamwendo said the adoption of Vitamin-A was ideal with the coming of government’s school feeding program which identified the crop as so nutritious and the demand increased, giving an opportunity for farmers to make more profits.

He also said the promotion of the orange maize vitamin-A in collaboration with Harvest Plus is a surplus to what the union has already been doing on legume production.

Kamwendo said through the collaboration, they managed to produce about 300 metric tons in the first year of production while this year they have produced about 400 metric tons of orange maize vitamin A.

However, he lamented lack of financial support as a bottleneck to farmers in the country to fully excel in agribusiness.
He said some farmers fail to access loans from commercial banks in fear of issues to do with collateral and other bank demands including insurance.

Kamwendo said: “Every bank is looking for a farmer that has a ready buyer with ample financial resources. So many of these farmers are subsistence farmers and they do not have such kind of a market.”

“In the legume market, some of the buyers are not coming up with such kind of platform where they offer agricultural contracts.”
“Malawi will become a food basket only if the farmers are assisted financially. You know Malawians are hard workers and in Malawi what many know that brings food or money in their basket is farming.”

“If all farmers in all groups will access agribusiness loans, we will be assured that the Malawian economy will grow because they will have the muscle to compete on the market,” he said.

He also called for mindset change for farmers to start considering farming as a business so that they remain resilient in times of changes of prices of commodities.

He said: “This time our farmers are crying that fertilizer prices have gone up but I will change that to say farming cost has gone up.”

“It means that as a business, this should result in hiking price for that commodity to make profits, prices of legumes should also go up.”

“The market should prepare that the prices have gone up not just be crying. Now you should be thinking that these materials have gone up.”

Nationwide, COMSIP has 895 groups with a membership of 55,781 of which over the years has been facilitating growth of the groups into well managed, member-driven savings and investment institutions which have fully integrated enterprise development at their core.

Generally, COMSIP collaborates with various partners including policy direction and support from Government of Malawi (GOM) and other agencies such as National Local Government Finance (NLGFC), and development partners mainly the World Bank and German Technical Cooperation (GIZ).

The collaboration with various stakeholders helps in enhancing capacity building, general project management and coordination, savings mobilization, nutrition and health, business management and financial literacy among the rural and urban poor households.

There is need for more Malawians to invest in mechanized commercial agriculture if the country is to meet its aspirations contained in the Malawi 2063 vision.

State President Lazarus Chakwera said this at the launch of the 10 year implementation plan for Malawi 2063 that was held at Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe.

He said a person’s educational qualifications or economic status should not be a deterrent factor from participating in farming activities.

Chakwera said: “There are some in our midst who still need to be convinced to start farming because they think they are too educated or too cool to farm.”

“I notice that the Implementation Plan says that we need to digitize farming in order to make it more attractive to young people.”

“I believe that this is not the right way to say it. The right way to say it is that we need to digitize farming in order to make farming more efficient and more productive, and at the same time, we need to reeducate our youth to understand that farming is one of the surest paths to the wealth and prosperity they desire.”

He said there is need for more young people in Malawi’s colleges and universities to be aspiring either to use their education to make farming smarter or to use farming as a foundation for building wealth they can invest in building other industries they are trained in.

“There is no reason a person trained as a doctor cannot build wealth from smart farming and use that wealth to build a hospital. There is no reason a person trained as a teacher cannot use wealth from smart farming and use that wealth to build a school,” he said.

The Malawi 2063 blueprint, which seeks to transform Malawi into a middle income country by the year 2063, has prioritized agricultural commercialization, diversification and mechanization.

The government aims at transforming the agricultural industry from subsistence to commercial farming by encouraging farmers to not only be growing crops like maize only for their households, but engage in large scale farming that will see them using large scale machines in the farms.

Agriculture remains the mainstay of the economy, contributing close to a quarter of the country’s GDP and employing about 64 percent of the labour force.

Close to 80 percent of Malawians rely on rain-fed smallholder agriculture for food.

Though the sector is enjoying huge financial support from both the Government and development partners, production and productivity has remained below its potential and is insufficient to match the increasing demand from domestic and export markets because of low levels of improved farm input use, limited private investment, and low mechanization levels, among others.

Government’s agricultural commercialization drive is eyeing incorporating the use of heavy machinery that will ease workforce that farmers encounter.

The National Planning Commission (NPC), the driver of the MW2063, has prioritized youths as main players in the vision saying they are a fundamental human resource capital.

NPC’s Chairperson Prof. Richard Mkandawire said: “On this journey, our main assets remain the youth, including the girl child. And rightly so, the MIP-1 emphasizes engendered interventions that will promote youth engagement both in action and benefits through-out its Pillars and Enablers.”

“Along with this will be ensuring that our education system and institutions of higher learning are capacitated by both state and non-state actors as purveyors of relevant and employable skills. Skills that should be aligned to the MIP-1 priorities and Malawi 2063 vision generally.”

As banana production is dwindling in the country leading to massive importation of the fruit from neighbouring countries such as Tanzania, a local horticulture firm Synthesis Agriculture has embarked on interventions to scale up cultivation of the crop.

Production of bananas in Malawi has declined due to the outbreak of the Banana Bunchy Top Disease.
Director of Programmes and Marketing for Synthesis Agriculture Mphatso Chiyembekeza said, among other interventions, Synthesis Agriculture is conducting training programmes for farmers on banana cultivation.

He also said the company has conducted research to come up with resistant varieties of the crop and the current banana suckers their researchers are producing easily adapt to the weather patterns of the all banana growing areas in Malawi.

“Malawi used to produce lots of bananas in districts like Thyolo and Mulanje but the outbreak of the disease has drastically affected production. As Synthesis Agriculture, we intervened through research and later introduced the banana suckers that we give to farmers for free,” he said.

Chiyembekeza said it is worrisome that currently some parts of the country are relying on imported bananas, the development that is draining foreign exchange for Malawi and robbing the farmers of income they could have generated from the sale of the fruit.

“Most of the bananas that are being consumed in Malawi are being imported from other countries more especially Tanzania yet we used to have lots and lots of bananas some years ago.”

Chiyembekeza, however, bemoaned resistance by some farmers especially in Thyolo District to uproot the old banana varieties and plant the new disease resistant varieties.

He, therefore, appealed to stakeholders to assist the company in sensitizing the farmers on the advantages of growing the newly developed varieties.

Synthesis Agriculture has, meanwhile, called upon more Malawians to venture into banana farming to meet local market demand for the fruit.

The Banana Bunchy Top Diseases emerged in late 2009 with Thyolo and Mulanje being heavily affected districts before it spread to other banana growing areas putting banana cultivation at the risk of extinction in Malawi.

As of 2016, it was reported that the disease had wiped off the crop affecting 185,000 banana farming households.
Malawi imports about 20,000 tonnes of bananas per week mainly from Tanzania and Mozambique.

The Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) says there is huge information gap between the supply and demand sides of agriculture financing in the country saying there is a need for more interventions and coordination to narrow the gap.
FUM made the remarks during the inaugural annual agri-financing conference that was organized jointly with the Bankers Association of Malawi (BAM) under the theme; Improving Agricultural productivity and commercialization through access to affordable agriculture finance.

FUM Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jacob Nyirongo said the conference is one way FUM and BAM are utilizing in narrowing the information gap as it gives various stakeholders a platform to discuss and deliberate on how to improve the agri-financial part of the sector.

Nyirongo also said the conference augers well with the aspirations of the country reflected in the Malawi 2063 development agenda which ranks the agricultural sector as the main pillar towards achieving the vision.

He said: “The objectives of this conference are not exhaustive. Our ultimate objective is that through this conference farmers, financing institutions, private sector players and other players along the agriculture value chain should be able to venture into sustainable strategic business partnerships that will fast-track the agriculture transformation agenda.”

“As Union, we strongly believe that challenges that have stagnated our agricultural sector are very diverse hence demanding concerted efforts when attempting to deal with them.”

“It is for this reason that we collaborated with the BAM to initiate the process of creating this platform whereby key players in agriculture sector will be able to have an in-depth discussion on how we can enhance availability, accessibility and affordability of agricultural financing instruments in the country.”

Nyirongo lamented that the country continues grappling with low access and uptake of agricultural financing instruments despite numerous deliberate interventions and programs being implemented by the Government, non-governmental organisations and financing institutions to improve the uptake of agri-financing instruments in the country.

He said the sector will remain rudimentary unless efforts are made by key stakeholders in the agriculture sector to achieve significant increase in productivity, mechanization and commercialization.

In his remarks, Controller of Agricultural Services in the Ministry of Agriculture, Alexander Bulirani, said the Malawi Government believes that boosting agricultural production requires investments in irrigation, mechanization, fertilizer and improved seeds.

Bulirani said Malawi’s agricultural sector cannot grow in the categories of agricultural diversification, value-addition and agro-processing if the country continues to experience low access to finance for capital investment.

He said his Ministry has embarked on various interventional programs to ensure that farmers that are lagging behind due to lack of access to finance are assisted.

Bulirani said: “The government is currently implementing the Agricultural Commercialization Project (AGCOM) across the country, a flagship project that is providing the much needed capital to farmers for them to commercialize their production.”

“The government also instituted the Malawi Industrial and Agricultural Investment Corporation (MAIIC) in 2018 mandated to drive private sector-led economic development through mobilization of finance, skills and technology for sustainable wealth creation.”

“My Ministry also launched the Farmer Organization Strategy late last year and through this strategy, the Ministry is collaborating with other stakeholders to build strong farmer organizations that will be able to manage agricultural loans thereby reducing the risk of lending money to smallholder farmers.”

He also announced that the Ministry of Agriculture will soon be collaborating with other Ministries to embark on developing the Agricultural Financing Policy that will significantly contribute towards creating enabling environment for the agricultural commercialization agenda.

BAM Second Vice President Zandile Shaba urged banks in the country to come up with deliberate policies to finance agriculture saying the development can increase the added value of raw materials; strengthen local rural economies, food security and nutrition; and improve the quality of life in many homes at risk of exclusion and vulnerability.

Shaba stressed that policies, incentives and regulatory frameworks that safeguard and promote agro-industries have proven to be highly effective in lifting rural populations out of poverty in many countries.

She said from now onwards the country must take a full value chain approach from the farm to the table by greatly investing in the private sector across the agricultural value chains including modern seed and fertilizer companies, agricultural mechanization, irrigation and water management, warehousing, commodity exchanges, food manufacturing and processing, logistics, cold storage and transport.

Shaba said: “Malawi should not be a consumption center; it must be an agro-industrial center. Malawi must export processed tobacco, not leafy tobacco.”

“It must export specialized coffee with distinctively ‘aroma of Malawi’ instead of coffee beans, and export finished textile products and not cotton lint.”

“With access to finance in mind, we should not forget that modernization of the agricultural sector requires that we improve the functioning of agricultural markets.”

“Rapid progress has to be made on the development of commodity exchanges to improve farmers’ access to markets.”
“Commodity exchanges allow for better price discovery and can be effectively linked to warehouse receipt systems that allow farmers to use their grains as collateral for accessing credit from financial institutions.”

Shaba explained that structured markets are important for balancing capacities and prices of agricultural commodities and broadening of foreign exchange earnings.

She said if the structured markets are supported by export mandates, they could limit informal cross-border trade and increase agricultural exports.

The conference was premised on the following objectives: To provide a platform for open debate on policy and regulatory instruments that can enable effective performance of the agricultural financing sector; to provide a platform to financial service providers to present portfolios of their financing instrument that are tailor-made for agriculture; to provide a platform to farmers and agriculture practitioners to provide feedback on the way agricultural financing instruments are designed and; to provide an opportunity to financing institutions to market their products to farmers and other stakeholders.

The World Bank has faulted the Malawi Government on the implementation of the Affordable Input Subsidy Programme (AIP) saying its huge budget is weighing heavily on allocations to development of potential agricultural commercialization and diversification areas such as production of legumes for export.

In the Country Private Sector Diagnostic Report dubbed Creating Markets in Malawi, the World Bank urges Government to increase resource allocation for productive investments in the agriculture sector, including by reviewing and adjusting the AIP to improve efficiency in terms of distribution, targeted farmers most likely to benefit from the subsidy, and fiscal sustainability.

It says though the roll out of AIP and beneficial weather conditions have resulted in bumper harvest, the longer term effects and implications of the AIP need to be closely monitored.

President Lazarus Chakwera led government, launched the AIP in October 2020, as a successor programme to the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) which was being implemented by the previous administration.

“The budget allocation for the AIP is four times that of the FISP in its final year, absorbing nearly half of the overall agricultural budget. This crowds out productive investments in the sector that could promote commercialization and more sustainable farming practices,” reads the report.

It says by widening incentives for maize production, the AIP also departs from years of effort to promote intercropping and diversification into other, more lucrative commercial crops, such as legumes.

“Reliance on a single crop weakens resilience to production and price shocks—unfortunately all-to-common occurrences for Malawi’s farmers,” states the Bretton Wood institution in the report.

The AIP has scaled up government subsidy support making it available to over 3.7 million smallholder farmers from 900 thousand supported by FISP in its final year.

The program aims to boost maize production to ensure national and household food –sufficiency while also creating a market surplus keeping in line with FISP.

The AIP has a budget of more than US$212-million (MK160-billion) representing 45% of the total agriculture sector budget and 7% of the FY2020/21 national budget proposed in September 2020, this is a tremendous increase from the FISP budget which had been brought down to roughly US$ 46.3 million (MK35 billion) in FY2019/20.

In the report, the Bretton ood institution also challenges the Malawi government to reduce leakages and increase transparency in the implementation of AIP to ensure that the programme does not become another mechanism that only generates rents for political and business elites as it was happening in the implementation of FISP by the past leadership.

The report reviews that in the past those with close relations to the political leadership benefited quite a lot from the programme.

Reads the report: “The AIP requires the participation of a broader set of private sector players simply due to the programme’s holding both suppliers and the Government accountable for true delivery of the quality inputs and timely fulfillment of payouts,”

“Success will depend on transparent contracting and enforcement, holding both suppliers and the government accountable for timely delivery of high-quality inputs and timely fulfillment of payments.”

The Bank observes that unlike FISP, the AIP does not provide coupons for legumes. Though sorghum and rice are included in the programme, experience has shown that they are not redeemed by farmers, who prefer maize as part of the cereal coupon.

It says such focus on increasing maize production detracts from efforts to diversify agricultural production.
“Malawi already suffers from an overdependence on maize, which drives soil degradation and increase vulnerability to climate shocks and pests, like the fall army worm,” the report reads.

The Bank also points out that continued focus on maize input subsidies reduces fiscal space to invest in other important sector priorities, such as irrigation and extension services.

It explains that with crop yields highly dependent on precipitation, input subsidies have experienced diminishing returns.

The report reads: “Yields have largely stagnated over the last decade, despite the FISP. The program accounted for over 40 percent of government spending on social protection between 2011 and 2019, yet more than half of Malawians continued to face severe food insecurity.”

“Analysis has shown that shifting some of the input subsidy expenditures into other social protection programs would be more effective in improving food security, while allocating a larger share of resources to investment in irrigation infrastructure and extension services to improve climate-smart agricultural practices would help to boost resilience to shocks.”

Smallholder farmers account for over 80 percent of Malawi’s agricultural production, but very few are market oriented.
More than 90 percent of farmers grow maize but just 10 percent sell it in markets, and fewer than one in five belong to a functional farmer organization.

The farmers farm on mostly small and fragmented plots, with limited and often unclear rights to the land. Tenure for most land is determined through customary systems and community ownership, which reduces the incentive to invest in the land, keeping productivity and yields low.

According to the report, Malawi’s top 10 exports in 2019 were agricultural products, and all but one have become increasingly important to the country’s export basket over the past 10 years. Small but significant steps have been taken to increase total value addition across the sector since the mid-2000s.

Raw tobacco exports, for example, have fallen since 2010, as exporters have increased primary processing to reduce bulk and weight prior to transport out of the country.

Exports of roasted coffee are another good example, becoming a million-dollar export industry in just a few years.
Other rapidly growing exports include pigeon peas, dried legumes, sesame, nuts, groundnuts, and soybean seed.

“At the same time, global demand for some important exports—notably, tobacco, raw cane sugar, and common peas—has been falling since 2015, emphasizing the need for continued diversification to respond to the market,” reads the report.

Malawian youths have risen up to shape the future of the country’s agriculture sector by exploring opportunities along the value chain in production and markets.

Youths in central Malawi’s Lilongwe district, have teamed up under a project called Youth in Agribusiness to harness the potential of the sector away from subsistence farming to employment creation, economic growth, export earnings, poverty reduction, food security, and nutrition.

Founder and leader of the group, Blessings Banda, says the aim of organization is to make agriculture attractive and profitable to the youth so that they can embrace it and be able to create wealth.

Population growth and an economic slump have disrupted livelihoods in Malawi, where unemployment, mostly youth unemployment, is on the rise.

” This is an intergenerational initiative that offers practical skills to empower the youth by providing capacity building so that they take agriculture as a business and be able to create wealth”, explains Banda adding that the project also aims at opening production and marketing opportunities for the youths as well as lobbying for better market prices.

“We are a conduit that connects youths to access agri-finance,” he says pointing out that the institution will act as a guarantor to cushion participants who may struggle to provide collateral against agrifinance loans.

Banda says despite making some progress, Malawi still has a long way to go in agribusiness, especially in the provision of agrifinance as well as extension services in terms of agritechnical knowledge, expertise and support.

“Luckily, government and other stakeholders are already making partnerships aimed at creating a sustainable business environment for agriculture,” he explains emphasizing that deliberate policies and programs are underway to create good, profitable and promising markets.

Endorsing the project, founder and CEO of a Lilongwe-based enterprise, Mtengowakumunda company, Sylvester Chabuka, reiterates that agribusiness is very important to the social-economic development of the country.

He urges the youth to change their mindsets and seeing agriculture as a business.

Chabuka says that though 80 percent of the country’s population are engaged in agriculture, most do not take it as a business but rather for subsistence.

“Am glad to see my fellow youth, Blessings, implementing this project. We need more youths to venture into agribusiness and explore the value addition chains”, Chabuka says observing that value addition for farm produce has huge demand and potential in food processing.

Agriculture accounts for around 28 percent of the county’s GDP and contributes over 80 percent of the national export earnings, according to the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy III.

Malawi Milk Producers Association (MMPA), which is a mother body for dairy farmers and manufacturers of dairy products in the country, says there is a serious need for local farmers to embrace dairy farming which has the potential to improve their economic status.
MMPA Director Herbert Chagona said in an interview that the local dairy industry is hugely affected by the decrease in the number of dairy farmers.
Chagona explained that there are only about 1000 large scale dairy farmers in the country, the number he said is inadequate to produce sufficient volumes of milk to meet demand for local dairy processors.
He said his association is currently sensitizing farmers to realize the importance of embracing the industry so that there is an increase in the number commercial dairy farmers to satisfy local demand for dairy products and save foreign exchange through import substitution.
Chagona said, among other interventions, the organization has been importing highly productive bulls which are distributed to cattle farmer associations for cross breeding in order to increase milk production.
He also said they have been importing dairy goats to provide supplementary milk.
Chagona also said scarcity of grazing land is contributing to farmers’ reluctance to keep dairy cattle.
He, therefore, said his association is conducting a continuous training programme for farmers to establish their own pasture lands.
“There are several factors contributing to farmers’ loss of interest to venture into dairy farming, the major reasons being lack of government’s interest to develop the sector and scarcity of grazing land in most parts of the country,” he said.
While complaining that Malawi has the lowest milk consumption rate in Africa, Chagona said, consumption rate can improve if there are more dairy farmers and cattle in the country.
He also urged Malawians to change their attitude towards milk consumption saying some perceive it as a luxury.
World Health Organization recommends that a person should take at 100 litres of milk per year. But according to Chagona the highest milk consumer in the country takes only eight litres of milk per year which he described as pathetic.
“We can also encourage farmers to keep dairy cattle through advising people to consume more dairy products. It is sad that only a few Malawians include milk in their meals,” he said.
He also expressed concern over unavailability of dairy products’ manufacturers in some regions of the country saying it unfortunate that Northern Region which has the highest number of cattle in the country does not have any dairy manufacturing company to provide a reliable milk market to farmers.
He, therefore, revealed that his association is currently negotiating with some companies to establish their branches in the region.
The Association has also urged dairy farmers in the country to sell their milk at Milk Bulking Groups (MBG) where they can be offered better prices for their products.
Edwin Chigundo, Marketing Manager for Lilongwe Dairy 2001 Limited concurred with Chagona saying there is great need to encourage farmers to take dairy farming seriously.
He explained that the organization’s production is usually limited due to milk supplies which are usually low and fluctuative.
“There have been complaints that prices of most of our products are high, but the cause for that is insufficient milk supplies. High prices on dairy products can be avoided if farmers are encouraged to embrace dairy farming which may consequently lead to increased production and then reduced commodity prices,” said Chigundo.

The Poultry Industry Association of Malawi (PIAM) has expressed concern over massive exportation of soya beans, which is a major ingredient in the production of chicken feed, saying it has resulted in soaring prices of the feed due to low supply.
The Malawi government is encouraging exportation of soya beans as a way of ensuring that local farmers who are usually duped by middlemen benefit from their sweat.
But PIAM said the decision is adversely affecting the poultry industry which relies on the bean as its main source of raw material for the production of most chicken feeds.
PIAM Technical Director Eric Chuma said continued export of the crop has led to the drop in the legume’s supply to local poultry feed manufacturers who have consequently hiked commodity prices, which is choking the poultry industry.
Currently the legume’s market price has jumped from about K500 to K800 per kilogram which Chuma said is a threat to the survival of the local industry.
“As an organization responsible for poultry farming in the country, we are concerned with government’s decision to export all the beans harvested in the just ended season. The exportation means the crop would be found in low supply locally, which would eventually affect local poultry production particularly by farmers who would be demanded to pay more for the feed,” said Chuma.
Chuma said the development would also affect poultry products consumption in Malawi, which is the lowest in Southern African Development (SADC) region.
“As much as it is a fact that soya export will affect poultry feed manufacturers, we are concerned that the development will lead to the reduction in consumption of poultry products whose prices are likely going to increase. For your information World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that one person should consume at least 8 kilograms of chicken meat a year, unfortunately, the highest consumer in Malawi eats less than that, which is the lowest in SADC,” said Chuma.
He also urged government to encourage farmers to start producing huge quantities of the crop so that the country can have sufficient quantities of the seed for local consumption and export.
Records have shown that, Malawi produces 200 thousand metric tons of soya beans a year which is against the demanded 500 thousand Metric tons.
Chuma said there are expectations that exportation of the legume might lead to the drop in number of poultry farmers as many will not afford buying feed at exorbitant prices.
He said such a situation may affect exportation of poultry products and domestic incomes of small-scale poultry farmers.
Operations Manager for leading poultry producer Central Poultry (CP) Michael Davis complained that soya exportation has affected operations of the company.
He said CP is already buying poultry feed at higher prices and such price increases may be effected on prices of their end products in so doing impacting on consumers.
“It is true that Soya beans which is one of the raw materials for manufacturing poultry feed is in low supply and expensive which is affecting our business, as prices of most chicken feeds have gone up,” he said.
Local animal production sector contributes 11 percent to Malawi’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with poultry industry alone contributing about eight percent.
Meanwhile, the Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) has called on government to put in place measures aimed at promoting poultry farming in the country saying the industry has potential to substantially contribute to the economy of the country.
FUM’s President Frighton Njolomole made the call in an interview with Agribusiness Review following an observation that raising of domesticated birds such as quails (zinziri) has become popular in the country.
“We cannot deny the fact that the poultry industry is now one of the fastest growing industries in the commercial farming fraternity looking at how popular raring of birds has become,” said Njolomole.
Njolomole urged authorities to respond to the growing interest of farmers at both local and urban level in the poultry business by putting in place interventions that will help them expand their business.
He said “The government needs to deploy extension officers to be inspecting the poultry farming sites to teach farmers best practices.”
“We would definitely love to have a lot of people from agricultural sector who are committed in what we, as farmers, are doing. We have young men and women who are working tirelessly in the industry.”
Njolomole also said the government needs to promote poultry farming so that Malawi becomes self-reliant on production of chicken products.
“The country has the capacity to produce many chickens to meet local demand and export to other countries. We should not be importing chickens because of complacency,” he said.
Njolomole said if Malawi exploits the full potential of the poultry industry, government can collect increased revenue in form of taxes, and the industry can also substantially assist in improving the financial well-being of farmers and providing nutritional requirements to the population.

With the Malawi Government pushing to see a majority of the country’s subsistence farmers graduating into commercial farmers, local seed producers have called upon farmers in the country to adopt the use of hybrid seeds which are high yielding and early maturing in order to substantially benefit from their trade.
The call has come at the time there are reports that some farmers are resistant to the use of modern agricultural methods including the use of hybrid seed varieties.
Seed Trade Union of Malawi (STUM) Business Development Officer Kawayawaya Chisi said local farmers can benefit from their activities if they start using improved seed varieties which are high yielding and early maturing.
He said studies have revealed that farmers using hybrid seeds benefit more than those using local seed varieties.
He said as one way of ensuring that most Malawians are reached with information about the importance of using hybrid seed varieties, STUM engages some Non-governmental organizations (NGO) to sensitize farmers in the rural areas on the importance of using modern seed varieties.
Bayer Malawi Limited Country Head Chikondi Dalitso Ng’ombe said there is a serious need for local farmers to start using modern agricultural technologies such as utilisation of improved seed varieties if the industry is to develop.
Ng’ombe said her Company is currently organizing meetings with farmers to convince them on the benefits of improved seed varieties.
Demeter Seed General Manager Prashant Khatri also said the use of improved seed varieties is the right direction farmers should take, if they want to benefit from their works.
Ruster Seed Managing Director Funny Thengo said the use of improved seed varieties leads to the realization of high-quality yields for the benefit of farmers through ensuring domestic food security and surplus for sale.
“Though some farmers are resistant to the use of modern seed varieties, we are doing everything possible for them to understand the benefits of using such seed varieties,” said Thengo.
In an attempt to ensure that local farmers use hybrid seeds, Seed Co, one of the local seed producers, has ventured into a programme of reaching remotest places of the country with their products. The Company’s Commercial Director Gift Kawamba said in an interview that through the initiative farmers who are resistant to the use of modern seed varieties are being engaged.
“We have realized that most farmers in the rural areas either use local or recycled seed varieties, so we have come up with the initiative aimed at reaching masses in the remotest areas with our products,” said Kawamba.
Premium Seed Director Frank Samidu said in an interview that the only way the country can increase its annual food production to meet the growing demand is tthe use of modern seed varieties that can adapt to climate change problems such as fluctuating rainfall patterns.
“It is painful for farmers to toil throughout the season just to get handful yields because they used wrong seed varieties,” said Samidu.
PYXUS Agriculture Limited Managing Director Ron Ngwira said in order to encourage farmers to use improved seed varieties, his Company is working with over 6,000 smallholder farmers on contract farming.
Ngwira said the farmers are growing different improved varieties of legumes mainly groundnuts across the country.
He also said his Company is working with the Department of Research in the Ministry of Agriculture to develop a new high yielding groundnut variety called CG-15.
“We always assure farmers that the only way for them to benefit from their activities is the use of hybrid seeds,” he said.
FURAHA Seed Managing Director Lucy Kanyowile and Felix Jumbe Director for Peacock seeds also admitted in separate interviews that the only reliable way for farmers to benefit from their activities is being cautious on the types of seeds they use.
Jumbe said the country would be food secure if all the farmers were to adopt modern seed varieties which are high yielding if compared with the indigenous varieties.
Seed Tech Chairman Eric Phiri said his company is also conducting campaigns to lobby farmers in the country to embrace improved seed varieties.
But farmers interviewed at random urged the seed producers to consider plight of the local farmer when setting prices for their seeds in order for them to stop planting recycled seeds which have a negative impact on the quantity and quality of yields.
To address the challenge of using poor quality seeds, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) harmonized seed regulatory systems.