Malawi needs heavy investment in agriculture production
Malawi needs to invest heavily in agricultural production capacity both infrastructural and working capital to ensure that the natural resources the country has brings in wealth to the people and to the nation as whole.
A renowned farmer, Felix Jumbe, who is also former president Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) said this in reaction to a World Bank statement which indicated that investments in agriculture are at least twice as effective in reducing poverty than investments made in any other sector.
“Malawi has the potential to produce for exports not only tobacco, tea, coffee and sugar, but also maize, cow peas, groundnuts, rice, soybean, sunflower, timber, fish, beef, chickens, eggs, milk and many other agriculture produce because we are blessed with air, soil, sunlight, water which provide the necessary conditions for growth,” he said.
Jumbe said there is need to look into training as well as organising farmers into cooperatives to take everyone on board.
He also said the country needs to invest in appropriate market and production infrastructure based on the nature of crops to be handled.
“We also need to invest in market development and processing capacity targeting the regional and international markets. It is also important that we invest in transportation network, both rail and road to the ports and if necessary put storage facilities at the ports,” said Jumbe.
Malawi is an agro-based economy with agriculture contributing about 30 percent to the gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic growth, and employs 80 percent of Malawians directly and indirectly.
Over the past few years, the country’s economy has been growing, on average, by 7.5 percent thanks to the vibrant agriculture sector propelled by the success of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp) in which poor farmers receive a coupon with which they use to buy a 50 kilogramme bag of fertiliser at K500.
Jumbe noted that investment in agriculture productivity can help employ more people than any other sector and provides a springboard for other sectors such as banking, motor and machinery.
He said that Africa is the only continent with 64 percent of arable land that that is uncultivated and, if well organised, should be able to feed the world population of nine billion people in 50 years’ time apart from feeding itself.
