New regulations to boost agribusiness
Minister of Agriculture Lobin Lowe has promised that his ministry will put new regulations in agribusiness that will favour Malawian investors.
The minister said this when opening an annual review and planning meeting for agriculture research programmes for the 2019/2020 that took place at Bvumbwe Research Station in Thyolo District.
Lowe said it is disappointing that the sector which was supposed to be controlled by the locals is dominated by foreigners.
“For example, if you go to Mgona market in Lilongwe you will find bags of legumes owned by foreigners such us Burundians and Nigerians and they know where to export those crops.
“We have put much of our focus on production leaving the marketing side behind; hence, foreigners are taking advantages of exploiting of our farmers,” he explained.
Lowe said he will ensure that after the good research is conducted and the technologies are fully implemented the country should economically benefit from it.
During the opening ceremony, the Department of Agriculture Research Services (Dars) highlighted some of the achievements that it has made in the past 10 years one of which is development of 275 technologies.
The Dars director Wilkson Makumba said much of these research technologies are to do with cereals such us maize.
“We could have done better than that but the funds we get are not enough because research is quite expensive. Apart from that, the staff is quite small and I can confess that we do not have an animal breeder in the department,” he said.
