Fears over next year’s harvest

The Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI) has criticised the government for going beyond its mandate and interfering with agriculture sector policies and in the process frustrating private sector efforts.

This came out during the agriculture sector review meeting which took place recently in Lilongwe where various stakeholders, including the private sector, development partners and economists, took time to analyse the sector’s performance and its contribution to the economy.

MCCCI Chief Executive Officer, Chancellor Kaferapanjira, said that the government is more obsessed with making political decisions than business decisions that would have helped grow the sector.

“There have been mixed developments in the sector, the country benefited from good weather last year and a lot of people invested in the sector as well and in terms of harvest, we did very well but the unfortunate thing is that there is so much interference, especially from the government side,” Kaferapanjira said.

He gave an example of the maize export ban indicating that it was ill-timed.

“They have lifted the ban now but it is not going to benefit those who should have benefited. We do not know whether farmers have enough money to buy inputs, so we don’t know what is going to happen next year,” Kaferapanjira added.

Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Joseph Mwanamvekha, however, holds that the sector has made tremendous progress as it still contribute a large chunk to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“I can confidently say that we are making progress. Agriculture contributes about 30 percent to GDP and about 60 percent of the country’s workforce.

“But we need to consolidate the gains that we have made by ensuring that we address the vulnerabilities that we have, including the issue of irrigation,” Mwanamvekha said.