We, members of the Bottom Up delegation led by our indomitable leader, Genuine Professor Ms. Joyce Befu, MG 66, and the Most Excellent Achiever, MEGA-1, are shocked to learn that after investing so much in Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) we still have to buy maize from other countries to fill the gaps. What happened to the mega farms that showed promise, and we saw the bumper harvests there being displayed?
If we miss on agriculture production, ours is a failed nation. Forget about mining and tourism. Our colleagues are investing in tourism. We are not. We want to mine, but we are busy sending precious minerals away to be tested. Tested? For how long?
Everybody knows that we are going through a period where money does not matter. Goods are unreachable. The money we get as pensioners, civil servants, etc cannot finish a housing project, and it cannot feed a family.
Those who have luxury household items such as televisions and radio sets are selling them off to buy fertiliser, yet we have an agriculture inputs subsidy programme that consumes close to 20 percent of the National Budget. What we get is far from what we put in.
That is why we counted on improved and increased agriculture production. The next government, Lazarus Chakwera’s or another, must phase out AIP targeting poor farmers. They cannot feed the nation. We know it. They have failed.
The money must, instead, be given to commercial farmers so that they produce more maize for us to buy cheaply. Yes, support commercial farmers, ye shall feed the nation. Continue AIP, ye shall starve the nation.
Agriculture investment experts have time and again said that Malawi needs just 10 serious commercial farmers to operate selected mega farms to produce food for Malawi. Give them enough support, extension officers, IT leeway, and a conducive policy direction; money, and Malawi will graduate from begging for food. Learn to listen.
Listen to your heart and the hearts of many who are speaking on AIP. Local farmers have said so. Chiefs have said so. Experts have said so. And we say so. AIP targeting the poor must fall. Though their votes matter, their efforts at scratching the soil to feed this nation do not count very much. Target agriculture subsidy. Target commercial farmers. Do they exist at all? Search for them or create them.
And we have now 229 MPs with each getting the promised K500 000 CDF money. If the MPs could pool their CDF and sponsor just one productive farmer per district we could have that bumper harvest. CDF should be treated as an investment in the constituencies and at the end of every year the MPs should account for it at district level parliament (the district council) and later in Parliament. CDF could create commercial farmers.
That is why we like CDF. It is the money that should have an impact on rural voters. And investing in agriculture first and health second will see us alleviate our poverty at the micro-level, the family.
We need to move forward on this. Agriculture production and commercialisation has featured in every policy since impendence. It created tobacco barons but not seriously maize farmers. But we know that it has always received the male lion’s share of the National Budget.
