Farmers urged to use seed from authorised dealers
Seed Company of Malawi (Seedco), one of the seed makers in the country, has said the use of seed from unauthorised dealers has the potential to retard economic development as farmers do not get value for their farming.
Speaking during a field day at Champiti in Ntcheu last week, Seedco country marketing manager, Wordington Lipenga, said many farmers do not profit from farming because they resist using modern drought resistant varieties and so yield no meaningful returns on agriculture production.
“We encourage farmers to buy seed from our key accounts such as Agora, Chipiku, Peoples and authorised dealers and not vendors because unscrupulous people repackage ordinary maize into our packs parading it as genuine and farmers lose out in poor returns at the end of the day,” Lipenga said.
He said as a precaution, Seedco had to rebrand its packaging to protect farmers from unscrupulous people but for farmers to avoid such incidences they should be buying only from authorised agro-dealers or key accounts.
Group Village Headman Chimkuluchina asked Seedco to establish permanent shops where farmers could buy seed even during the dry season for winter cropping and not only during rainy season.
“Farmers have problems to access recommended seed during the dry season because most of the satellite depots do not stock the seed or even close shop leaving farmers with no choice but buy from vendors at open markets,” Chimkuluchina said.
Seedco has been in the seed production industry since 2,000 and offers maize varieties such as mbidzi, mkango, kanyani and njovu apart from soya, groundnuts and vegetable seed.
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