BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR
Maupo Chisambi, 24, has just graduated from one of the country’s prestigious colleges, Chancellor, with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences.
He is now looking forward to a day when employers will offer him his long-time dream job—company manager. That’s not being naïve for a Malawian graduate. To be a boss of a company or organization is the ultimate goal young people want to achieve in life.
Ask any school-going child about what he or she wants to be when they grow up and you will be told all sorts of professions minus farming.
The importance of agriculture cannot be overemphasized although less value for the same is created. Every parent wants their kids to become a doctor, engineer, scientist, business person and any other white colour job, but no one wants their kids to become a farmer.
“When I grow up, I want to be a doctor/pilot/teacher,” school-going children would say.
Farmers are the only creators in the world; others are just processing and changing what farmers create. This shows how important agriculture and farming are across the world.
Whereas we have consultants for fields such as Information Technology (IT), Human Resource and so on; there is none of such nature to solve agri-issues.
Despite agriculture being the backbone of Malawi’s economy, very few people think of investing in the industry. We have business people, industrialists, investors who are ready to invest millions of Kwacha to set up restaurants, private schools, car dealers, movie production houses and many more which can just bring luxury to a person but not the life.
By not investing in agriculture, Malawians are, in a way, refusing to nurture the very backbone of our economy. It is unfortunate indeed that Malawians continue to regard farming as an occupation for the illiterate.
Mbasha dumps office work for a hoe
Just like any other person, Stonald Mbasha, 37, of Lupembe Village, T/A Kyungu in Karonga, had his own dream.
Mbasha’s most cherished dream was to become Company Manager or Director once he finished education.
When he got a job as a Pest Controller for Agricultural Division and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) early 90s, he considered it to be a transit to the topmost position at the institution—Chief Executive Officer, possibly.
This never came to pass as he resigned from his position in 2001 to invest in farming. But why change of mind, you would ask.
“The salary I got from there was too little to sustain my family. I thought it’s better to be a farmer with everything you need in life than a respected boss who cannot provide for his family because of poor pay,” said Mbasha.
No man can live without food and the only source of food is agriculture and farming. A farmer, therefore, plays a crucial role in producing food for the citizens while at the same time growing the economic lifeblood of the nation.
Mbasha, therefore, thought agriculture was the best way he could contribute to the economic development of his country. Thus in 2005, he rented a plot in Ntalika Village in T/A Nsamala’s area in Balaka where he ventured into irrigation farming on a small scale.
Malawi’s irrigation uptake
Irrigation farming is presently practiced on just a third of the one million hectares of land earmarked for the greenbelt programme.
Local agriculture experts explain that the two Southern districts of Chikhwawa and Nsanje could feed the entire country all year round if the Shire River, which cuts through the length of this southern plain, was utilized for intensive irrigation farming.
Yet, the two districts, often troubled by floods, are among the most desperately poor in Malawi, and their inhabitants survive on food handouts from government and donors such as Catholic Development Commission of Malawi (Cadecom).
Last season, Malawi produced 3.5 million tonnes of maize, the country’s staple crop. This is 1.1 million tonnes more than the country's total annual consumption. Of the total harvest, only 300,000 tonnes came from irrigation farming.
The Greenbelt initiative aims at attempting to diversify crops, targeting increased production of wheat, rice, millet, cotton, lentils and beans for export.
In February 2009, government invited bids from construction companies to establish, rehabilitate and manage 12 irrigation schemes as part of the programme.
Is government supporting irrigation farmers?
The national irrigation policy says that management of the schemes will be the full responsibility of the beneficiaries through their legally constituted local farmer organizations.
Through their organisations, the farmers will be encouraged to apply for a lease of the customary land. Alternatively, the farmers may apply to register the land as private land owned by a group of farmers, says the irrigation bill.
The national irrigation document states that government will bear the cost of establishing or rehabilitating the schemes prior to turnover. Thereafter, all operations, maintenance and replacement costs in the schemes are to be managed by the farmers themselves.
The schemes will be located on public land and government will then hand them over to legally recognised small holder irrigation farmers’ groups, preferably cooperatives or associations.
But government will not totally separate itself from the activities in the schemes. Apart from providing agricultural advisors, government will also explore ways of securing credit for farmers through the establishment and growth of savings and credit cooperatives and village banks.
"The overall policy for financing irrigation development is that it occurs with minimum government subsidy," reads the document in part.
During his visits to Brazil and the U.S. in September 2009, president Bingu wa Mutharika invited foreign investors to come to Malawi to participate in the implementation of the project.
Organizing markets for agricultural produce
Although the greenbelt project offers a lasting support to Malawi’s fragile economy, some civil society organizations on agriculture like Civil Society Agricultural Network (Cisanet) are worried that finding market for our agricultural produce could be a challenge.
Cisanet contends that the current situation where farmers have to find market for their produce does not really work to the best of our farmers.
“Although government has set the prices at which traders should buy farm produce, crops such as tobacco, maize and cotton have failed on the market, leading to some farmers to decide not to grow the crops this season,” the network told the media recently.
Mbasha seems to agree with Cisanet when he says he is struggling to find market for his produce.
“Market is the most difficult thing to find for my produce. It’s sad that 60 percent of my farm produce, especially vegetables, ends up rotting just because I can’t find market for them,” he complained.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture Margaret Mauwa said she could not say much on irrigation farming since it is not under her jurisdiction. Mauwa, however, encouraged people to invest in irrigation if Malawi is to achieve food security.
“I will be very happy to see more people going into irrigation farming. The president has been saying Malawi has enough resources to fight hunger and irrigation farming is one of the means through which we can achieve food security,” she said.
The department of irrigation recently told the media that it will be providing farmers with training on how to effectively negotiate for better prices for agricultural commodities. This, however, seems to take time to start.
But this does not stop Mbasha from believing that there are more financial gains in agribusiness than working in an office “where I will be receiving less than K10, 000 per month, which is too little for a five-member family like mine”.
“My humble suggestion, advice and request to all educated and young friends is to give at least 50 percent concentration towards the development of agriculture and farming in Malawi by getting involved in the process of educating the farmers to make use of the technology and the modern machineries and equipments to improve the end result,” he asks.
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