ARE WE REALLY HELPING OUR LOCAL FARMERS ?

In Malawi agriculture is regarded as an integral part of the nation’s economic growth, almost every family in the country is involved in the agriculture sector whether as a farmer, a labourer, or a vendor and what have you. Fortunately the country is favoured with productive natural resources, including soil, water, and moderate climate conditions which all necessitate agriculture production, be it animal or crop husbandry. We say Malawi is an Agriculture country ,some jokingly say it’s like a very big farm because almost everywhere people are practicing agriculture urban settings are no exception. But how many are really prospering because of it? Only a few are considered big farmers, a few can only produce enough for their families but you look at these people, they have been farming all their lives!

road side marketing of farm produce

Our farmers are encouraged to work extra hard, which from my experience they do but where are the readily available markets where they can actually sell and make a profit out it. If a lot of people are asked how many local productive farmers they know? I bet they can hardly mention five, but we are talking of a locality where everyone is farming. What really is wrong with our country? Don’t we put all our effort in Agriculture or there is something far beyond that, perhaps lack of well-established Agriculture markets is one of them, farmers produce the best they can but have
 nowhere to go and sell their produce, a lot end up along roadsides trying to sell their produce but they just end up making miserable profits which don’t cover up for their production costs.

Taking pride in our own things might also be one step to a prospering Agriculture business, as an agriculture country; it doesn’t make sense for us to willingly buy imported agriculture produce like green vegetables; fruits, fresh beans, meat and other products like tomato sauce. One may ask what exactly is wrong with us Malawians. Buying locally available farm produce like Onions, Tomatoes at a higher price in foreign shops like Shoprite while, our local farmer’s produce which are extremely cheaper are rotting in our local markets. If it were possible I would love our government to put an initiative and convince people to buy produce from local markets. This will save money for the importation at the same time help our local farmers and also develop our country economically. I just wish more could be done to stop or reduce importation of agriculture products which are also produced here in abundance.

Our local farmers of course are helped in a lot of different ways, for example through subsidy programmes. These subsidized inputs are mistakenly given to people who don’t value agriculture as a driving force to the country’s economy, and in the end they end up in commercial farmer’s hands instead of helping smallholder local farmers. Once again these programmes are characterised by fraud and corruption, and the original design of farm inputs subsidy programmes has to be revised carefully in order to help our local poor farmers.

Every development policy in the country is driven by the government, of course the government is doing much but it has to do more than that. I am not trying to be political, but as Felix Jumbe, the chairperson of Agriculture and Irrigation Committee who is also a farmer and marketer, said the country needs an insightful leader to rejuvenate agriculture system for economic growth. A Lot has to be done because what is been done seems not to be enough and satisfying.