Following President Lazarus Chakwera’s declaration of a State of Disaster in 23 out of 28 districts in the country on Sunday, the Ministry of Agriculture has announced that it has started taking immediate action to address the problem.
Agriculture Minister Sam Kawale, who spoke to The Daily Times in an exclusive interview Tuesday, said they have earmarked over 54,000 hectares for irrigation, among other measures.
He said the ministry would, as part of the initiative, utilise irrigation schemes that are under the management of smallholder farmers for maize cultivation.
Kawale said the ministry will also engage the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) on the need to consider the possibility of engaging public institutions such Green Belt Authority (GBA) Mega Farms Unit and the Malawi Defence Force on production of irrigated maize.
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“NFRA will also be requested to engage other commercial farmers with already available irrigated land as identified jointly by the Department of Irrigation and NFRA in an arrangement where NFRA will act as an off-taker of the produce based on legally binding contracts.
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“It is also proposed that contract farming arrangements be extended to smallholder irrigators with medium and large-scale irrigation schemes,” the minister said.
Kawale further said government hopes to mobilise smallholder farmers across the country to undertake supplemental irrigation within the current rain-fed agriculture season and encouraged them to embark on irrigation farming early to ensure that the country has two cropping cycles at least.
“The current area under smallholder irrigated farming is 67,085 hectares, and it is estimated that at least 72.2 percent of the developed area is under maize production during the current supplemental irrigation season, thus we expect that about 240,000 metric tonnes of maize will be realised from the 48,435 hectares [that are] under conventional irrigation,” he said.
This week, agriculture policy expert Leonard Chimwaza urged stakeholders to promote irrigation farming, saying this is key to meeting the country’s food security goals.
