By Deogratias Mmana
Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) has embarked on an initiative to support Malawi double its rice production by 2030 and is working with the Ministry of Agriculture to achieve the goal.
Malawi is among 32 countries in Africa under the initiative called Coalition for African Rice Development (Card) supporting the efforts of African countries to increase rice production by Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra) and New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
Card is an initiative that came from the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (Ticad) process.
Jica Chief Representative in Malawi Kazuhiro Tambara confirmed in an interview his institution’s efforts to help Malawi double its rice production.
He, however, said Jica is waiting for the approval of the revised draft National Rice Development Strategy (NRDS), which expired in 2018 and was submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture in June 2023.
Tambara said Jica is planning to implement a Rice Development Technical Project in the 2024-25 financial.
“We have been making follow-ups on the same and there are indications that possibly before the end of this financial year (March end). We are hoping that the draft will be approved soon,” he said.
He said the validation of the NRDS will play a significant part in the development of the project.
He said the idea is to double rice production across sub-Saharan Africa and that Malawi has adopted the same goal and the NRDS has set targets which basically double the current production.
“By doubling production, Malawi will achieve rice self-sufficiency and we will not be importing a lot of rice from other countries. On the contrary, we will be in a position to export more rice to other countries and earn the much-needed foreign currency,” Tambara said.
Deputy Director of Crops Development in the Ministry of Agriculture, who is overseeing the project, Martin Kaisi confirmed the development but did not give details as to why the strategy is not yet approved.
He said: “The strategy needs to be approved by management before it can be shared.”
Card supports member countries in preparing their NRDS through organising a series of workshops called Working Week.
According to NRDS 1 which ran from 2014 to 2018, Malawi produced approximately 111,000 tonnes of rice in 2012 on around 60,100 hectares of land under rice cultivation, out of an estimated 600,000 hectares of potential cultivation area.
