Agcom provides K381 million to agribusiness groups in Karonga

Agriculture Commercialization (AGCOM) Project has provided a total of K381 million to Kapolo Small Holder Farmers Association (KASFA) and Karonga Women’s Poultry Cooperative in a bid to boost agricultural commercialization,.

Speaking Wednesday when Minister of Agriculture, Lobin Lowe visited some of the agribusiness groups in Karonga, AGCOM National Coordinator, Dr. Ted Nankhumwa said the project which was initiated in 2018 aims at transforming subsistence agriculture to commercial entity.

“To achieve this objective, we have establishment over 200 productive alliances beating our target of 218 across the country and linked them to available and steady markets.” he said.

Nankhumwa said AGCOM provided K261 million to KASFA for construction of a warehouse which will store up to 2 000 metric tons of rice.

He added that that KASFA has procured a K31.5 million rice sorter machine with multipurpose functions such as milling, colour sorting, polishing and packaging.

Lowe said AGCOM’s support to farmers relates well with Malawi 2063 where agriculture was the number one pillar with a focus on productivity and commercialization.

He said farmers in the country have for a longtime struggled to access loans from commercial banks to invest in agriculture initiatives in a bid to transform their livelihoods and contribute towards the country’s social economic development.

Lowe commended KASFA and Karonga Women Poultry Cooperative for contributing 10 percent of the money which they applied for as a requirement for them to get the financial support from the project.

He urged the groups to continue working tirelessly saying government values their contributions towards the country’s development.

Chairperson for KASFA, Twebo Ng’oma said his association used to spend a lot of money paying hired rice storage service and that the challenge has been addressed through the project.

“It was a hard job to grade and package rice manually and in some cases, the processes were inaccurate,” he said.

Chairlady for Karonga Women Poultry Cooperative, Grace Msukwa commended government through AGCOM for the support, saying the group has managed to raise its poultry production.

“We received K120 million out of which we used K84 million to construct permanent poultry kraals,” he said.