By Isaac Salima:
President Lazarus Chakwera has spoken against the fear of chasing dreams, saying it continues to derail implementation of development plans.
Chakwera made the remarks in Chikwawa Tuesday after launching the Katunga-Maseya Cooperative Mega Farm.
Smallholder farmers are expected to benefit from the 1,069-hectare land by engaging in sugarcane production.
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Chakwera challenged Malawians to have a positive attitude in their undertakings, saying that is the only way to prosperity.
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He said the fact that the country cannot economically compete against other super powers is not reason enough to play second fiddle to them.
“The mistake we have made for a long time is that we allowed our limitations to be used by others to police us, to intimidate us, and to make us afraid of taking risks, afraid to stand up for ourselves, afraid to chase our dreams, afraid to take charge of our own destiny and afraid to even be proud of ourselves, our country and our compatriots.
“We have already seen these condescending attitudes whenever we have championed an idea that is our own, or advocated for a national vision for ourselves or made a decision that we believe is in our nation’s best interests.
“Whether we were launching a programme to subsidise farm inputs for our farmers, or embarking on a mission to open an embassy in Israel, or rewriting our land laws, some people from nations that are older than us, bigger than us, stronger than us and richer than us have told us that we can’t do these things, some even taking steps to silently punish us for doing these things,” the President said.
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He added that the newly launched mega farm represents the country’s resolve to produce in huge quantities.
Under Agricultural Commercialisation (Agcom) Project, the government, with support from the World Bank, pumped in K5.3 billion, where farmers under Kama Cane Growers Cooperative are implementing a sugar cane production sub-project.
World Bank Country Manager Hugh Riddell said the Agcom project is achieving its purpose of changing the narrative about agriculture in Malawi.
“We believe Malawi has huge potential to recover its former capacities as an export-oriented economy, through commercial farming, agri-logistics and agri-business,” Riddell said.
Chairperson of the cooperative Collins Ntalika stated that the initiative will transform their livelihoods.
“The projection output from the plantation is over 96,000 metric tonnes of sugarcane, which will give us about K4 billion. In addition to that, 10 percent of the land will be used for food production, meaning that households will be food sufficient,” Ntalika said.
Chakwera toured farms and offices for the cooperative and also visited Press Cane Limited, which will be buying the sugarcane from the farmers for ethanol production.
