FUM calls for revival of banana production
Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) has called for intensified efforts to revive banana production as the country is losing foreign currency to banana imports from Mozambique and Tanzania.
FUM president Maness Nkhata said in a written response on Wednesday that the country is monthly importing more than 20 000 metric tonnes of bananas.
“This implies that resuscitation of the value chain will result in import substitution and will more importantly revive livelihoods for the banana farmers,” she said.
Nkhata said farmers are also struggling to afford clean and disease-free banana suckers, urging government to support farmers to enable access clean planting materials.
“Considering that most of the disease-free banana planting materials are produced from the improved tissue culture, their prices are beyond the reach of most farmers,” she said.
Nkhata further said farmers are already complying with the government directive to uproot and burn old banana plants that are either infected or prone to infestation by banana bunch top disease.
Agriculture Sector Wide Approach Support Project II (Aswap SP II) national coordinator Henry Msatilomu in an earlier interview decried huge import of bananas from neighbouring countries.
He said: “It is clear that the banana industry is disturbed. We have people in Mulanje and Thyolo whose livelihoods solely depended on bananas.
“It is in our interest to contribute to the rehabilitation of the banana industry.”
Msatilomu said under the Aswap SP II, they are importing micro-propagated clean planting materials which they are distributing to farmers as well as imparting knowledge and skills on how they can manage the crop.
He said government expects many farmers to continue managing their bananas and macro propagating more suckers to sell or share so that Malawi produces more banana to substitute the imports.
Since the mid-1990s, smallholder farmers in Malawi have suffered the destruction caused by banana bunchy top disease in their plantations.
Data from the Ministry of Agriculture shows that about 70 percent or 30 000 hectares of the country’s banana production area was lost due to the disease.
As plantations continued to decline in the 2000s, prices also increased steeply, causing traders to rely on banana imports from Tanzania and Mozambique.
