When appetite for local chicken grows

Every morning, Charles Wedson Matiya leaves his home at Tepani Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Mkanda in Mulanje for Blantyre City where he sells local chickens door-to-door. This has been his life since 2000.

Sometimes months pass without seeing his family during the day time.

“The only time I sit down with my family is at night when I am back from Blantyre. My business is doing great and the demand for local chickens in the city in on the rise.

“My family is very understanding. I need to work to make my family live a better life,” he says.

Matiya is a familiar face in Blantyre’s townships such as Kanjedza, Chinyonga, Chitawira, Nkolokosa and Soche. He has many regular customers that he allows some to get chickens on credit.

Matiya says through his business, he has discovered that many Blantyre residents prefer local chickens than broilers.

“Many people buy local chickens saying they are tasty. Most of my customers complain when I take two or three days without supplying them with local chickens,” he says.

Chikondi Kalumo of Chitawira says her family prefers local chicken to hybrid chicken.

“Previously, my husband was buying broilers. But the other day my mother-in-law brought us local chicken from the village in Salima and everyone enjoyed it. Since that time, whenever Matiya passes by with local chickens, they ask me to buy. Local chicken has become a darling in our home,” says Kalumo.

Matiya says he buys his chicken at K1000 from farmers in Mulanje and sell at K2000 (US$5) in the city.

The business has transformed Matiya’s life. He has used profits to acquire land at Tepani Trading Centre in Mulanje. He plans to develop the land into a business centre.

“I have also bought a motorbike and I help my parents and relatives financially. All my children are at primary school but I hope once they reach secondary school, I will be able to pay school fees for them,” he says.

Matiya, who attended Mulomba Community Day Secondary School in Mulanje, says he failed to pass the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE).

However, he says the agriculture knowledge he acquired in secondary school helps him a lot.

“When farmers want to sell me a sick chicken, I can easily notice because at secondary school I learnt signs and symptoms of a chicken which is suffering from Newcastle disease (chitopa/chipumphu). And when the chicken falls ill in my temporary khola, I am able to treat it until it gets well enough to be sold,” he explains.

Interestingly, Matiya also helps local chicken farmers with basic knowledge on how they can properly feed the chickens so that they sell at a good price.

“I tell farmers to take care of their chickens so that they should be attractive. I buy them at a good price depending on the quality. Chickens of good quality attract more customers,” reveals Matiya.

His dream is to grow his business to the point where he can win tenders to supply local chickens to boarding schools, hotels and other eating places.

“I work hard so that this business should grow. Once I raise enough money, I will start approaching hotels to negotiate a deal of supplying them with these local chickens,” he says.

Matiya says he understands the nutritional value of local chickens, hence he slaughters one once in a while for home consumption.

Nathan Kamanga, assistant veterinary officer at Central Veterinary Laboratory in Lilongwe, says many Malawians prefer local chickens because of its flavour.

“People have realised that local chicken has a nice flavour as compared to the broilers. Another reason is that a local chicken is leaner and drier which means it has less fat. Thus, a local chicken is good for all people regardless of their health status. It is even good for diabetic people.

“Others like local chickens because they are slaughtered when they are really mature while broilers in some quarters are called immature adults,” says Kamanga.

He advises farmers to be serious with local chicken farming to meet the increasing demand.

“There is need to give the same attention to local chicken as they do to broilers, such as vaccinating the local chickens so that they grow well,” says Kamanga.

He says since local chickens are raised on free range system, the farmers can make more money as they will spend less on feeds.

DD Phiri

Democracy where majority rules

If you bathe in a pool of water infested with bilharzia snails, you may not be infested by bilharzia at once, but a time will come not too far away when you will have bilharzia. To be sure of not getting the disease, avoid suspicious pools.

If you live in an environment full of mosquitoes and you do not sleep under a mosquito net, you may not get malaria at once, but a time will come when you will have the malaria. The best thing to do is to sleep under a mosquito net always and take measures to destroy mosquitoes.

In political systems, there are also agents of political malaise just as mosquitoes are carriers of malaria.

A system that safeguards privileges of a few harbours within its own types of disease, political and social instabilities. Whoever genuinely believes in national unity and stability should oppose the entrenchment of privileges even if he or she would be the beneficiary of the privileges.

The idea and practice of democracy was first developed in the ancient Greek city of Athens where all free men took part in political assemblies and discussions. This was possible because populations were small.

The idea was modified in more populous environments such as England where representative democracy had its first roots. People who met certain qualifications of property and age took part in electing representative to Parliament.

The party system came on the scene when representatives who shared the same interests and ideologies decided to work and campaign together.

Under the parliamentary systems such as that of Britain and India, people do not elect prime minister or presidents directly. Instead, the party with the largest number of seats in Parliament elects the prime minister. If the majority party is defeated in Parliament on a vote of confidence, then it must resign and a fresh general election must be held. Under the parliamentary system there is no strict adherence to election time tables.

Malawi has more of a presidential system than a parliamentary one. The State chief executive called president holds office by direct mandate from the people.

The 1994 Malawi Constitution states that a candidate who has won most of the votes even if they were less than half of the total vote was declared the winner. Only in the 2009 elections did Malawi have a president who won more than 50 percent of the votes.

In some African countries such as Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Mali, constitutions state that if none of the presidential candidates wins at least 50 percent of the vote, there should be a re-run of the election between the best and second best.

The idea is that a president should be a person who has received the approval of the bigger part of the electorate as a whole, not just the approval of his religion or region.

In the years 2007 and 2008, a constitutional committee worked on a new Constitution under the chairmanship of retired Justice Elton Singini. Representatives from every sector of the Malawi society assembled at Capital Hotel in Lilongwe, debated and gave tentative approval of the draft constitution. It was expected that before the next election of 2009 the new Constitution would be tabled in Parliament for approval or otherwise.

The Constitution was not taken to Parliament by the minister concerned for the reasons that the minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs has been quoted in The Nation of Monday, August 11 2014 that introducing the new constitution into Parliament was not a priority as far as the Cabinet was concerned. But is that also the view of the people who took part in working up the constitution? The minister should be reminded that another term for constitution is basic law or fundamental law. This means that all statutory bills and laws should be based on the basic or constitutional law.

If the 1994 Constitution was condemned as done in haste, why should it continue to be the basis of acts of Parliament for over 20 years? Whose interest is it serving?

Countries where leaders recognise the sovereignty and interests of the people conduct referendums to let people decide whether to adopt the constitution or not. This was done in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Mali and elsewhere in Africa where parliaments felt humble enough to give the final decision on a matter of overriding importance to the people.

The reluctance to introduce the constitution into Parliament is not a mystery.

We may fool some of the people some of the time, but we cannot fool all the people all the time, with due apologies to the great democrat Abraham Lincoln.

What we need in Malawi is a constitution that provides for competition between individuals not regions. Regionalistic privileges breed civil wars between a region and a central government.