Following the first rains, farmers are busy in their gardens either planting or finalising land preparation. Ideally, this should be a time for renewed hope, but that is not the case for smallholder farmer Catherine Samson of Chiradzulu District.
The 35-year-old mother of five is reeling under the shock of high prices of improved maize seeds she encountered when she visited an agro-dealer outlet.
Maize seed prices have doubled from last season with a five-kilogramme (kg) pack now costing K62 000 from the range of K27 000 to K32 000. During the last agriculture season about K74 000 would fetch a 10kg pack of maize seed, but now Samson needs at least K112 000 to buy the same depending on the brand and type of certified maize seed.
Spot-checks in Blantyre, Lilongwe, Nsanje and Mzimba districts yesterday established that some agro-dealers are selling 5kg of Dekalb at as high as K101 000 and 10kg at around K192 000.
The soaring cost of maize seed has pushed Samson and other poor Malawian farmers to resort to using uncertified home-processed seed.
Speaking in an interview yesterday, she said: “The price of 5kg certified seed can buy almost 70kg of maize for food. With the hunger we are facing, it is impossible to choose seed over survival. So we have resorted to buying recycled local maize to plant.”
In Jekete Village, Traditional Authority Mpama where Samson lives, households are surviving on one meal a day and sometimes none. To them, K101 000 is more than a seed price, it is a fortune.
The situation has created a new wave of business opportunities which has seen some traders selling maize from previous harvests as seed.
One of the traders at Tomas Trading Centre in Chiradzulu, Annie Kalongonda Abdullah, said she decided to supply local maize variety from previous harvest as seed after noting the desperation among people who cannot afford certified seed.
“This maize is affordable. I sell one kilogramme at K6 000. That’s about K30 000 per 5kg. The maize is of good quality and produces high yields,” she said.
But Seed-Co Malawi managing director Boyd Luwe yesterday warned that planting recycled seeds, especially from hybrid varieties poses serious risks.
“Farmers should expect low yield, high disease risk, weak vigour, poor germination and overall low productivity because certified seeds provide guaranteed purity, higher yield, tolerance to drought, pests and diseases, and better grain quality,” he said.
In a separate interview, agricultural experts Leonard Chimwaza and Amos Ngwira said it is a bad agricultural practice to recycle maize, particularly hybrid maize seeds.
Chimwaza, an agriculture extension expert, said recycled hybrid maize seeds reduce yields by between 20 and 46 percent within the first three generations.
On the other hand, Ngwira noted that recycled local maize carries lower risk because it is naturally open-pollinated. But he warns that even then, productivity gradually declines.
But the warnings feel distant for farmers facing empty granaries like Samson.
“I know recycled seeds may not give me good yields, but I can’t watch my children go to bed hungry. I will plant what I can afford,” she said.
Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development spokesperson Arnold Namanja asked for more time before commenting on the matter.
