‘Govt will not abandon greenbelt initiative’
Newly-appointed Minister of Irrigation and Water Development Brown Mpinganjira says government will not abandon the Green Belt Initiative (GBI) because it is at the core of the country’s development agenda of turning the country from a net importer to an exporter.
In an interview in Lilongwe on Wednesday, Mpinganjira said the initiative is taking some time to take off the ground because of lack of funds.
“The project could have started because the President [Joyce Banda] is keen to see Malawians producing crops twice a year and this will mean that we might have a surplus to export to our neighbouring countries,” he said.
Mpinganjira noted that there are investors who have shown interest in the project.
“The President has been able to attract several investors and donors both from the East and the West and all indications are that they will be here soon to help us move forward,” he said.
The GBI concept is strengthened by painful memories of the severe drought beginning early 2002 which triggered hunger that affected many Malawians particularly the rural poor.
By 2005, five million people were affected by famine.
Mpinganjira said the districts of Chikhwawa and Nsanje could feed the entire country all year round if the Shire River—which cuts through the length of the southern plain—was utilised for intensive irrigation farming.
“There was survey done by colonialists in the 1950s which showed that the two districts of Chikhwawa and Nsanje could feed the entire country if the water in Shire River was properly utilised.
“Even if some people might argue that the survey was done a long time ago, the truth of the matter is that we have not fully utilised our water resources,” he said.
The GBI seeks to make Malawi independent of rain-fed agriculture.
For all the much-publicised success of subsidies for small-scale farmers over the past eight years, good rains have also helped to increase production of agricultural produce.
The GBI plan aims to protect the gains in food security, reduce vulnerability to drought and to boost production by irrigating a million hectares of land in a swathe lying within 20 kilometres of the country’s three lakes and 13 perennial rivers.
Irrigation agriculture is presently practised on just a third of the one million hectares of land earmarked for the green belt programme, according to statistics from the Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM).
In February 2009, government invited bids from construction companies to establish, rehabilitate and manage 12 irrigation schemes as part of the programme.
