Parliament on Tuesday passed two bills allowing the government to receive grants totalling K276.8 billion for the Agricultural Commercialisation (Agcom 2) project under the Food Resilient Programme for Eastern Southern Africa Project Phase 3.
The bills are the International Development Association Bill, which permits the government to get about K260 billion, and International Bank for Reconstruction Bill, which provides K16.8 billion— both from the World Bank.
Finance and Economic Development Minister Sosten Gwengwe told the august House that about 134,400 farmers are expected to benefit through training, market opportunities and other interventions under the six-year project.
“The only way to move this country forward is to have initiatives which really put a lot of emphasis on commercial agriculture. As such, commercialising agriculture is the surest way of achieving food security, being able to feed the nation going forward, because the population has boomed but the land remains constrained.
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“We need mechanisation and we need to commercialise agriculture,” he said.
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Among other things, the grants would complement each other in helping Malawi rebuild resilient agricultural production capacity through agricultural research, development and innovation systems.
The project would also support research activities on productivity and resilience of high value commercial crops and livestock. It would also expand markets by supporting farmer organisations with grants.
According to Gwengwe, the World Bank was convinced to provide the grant to Malawi because of the performance of the first Agcom programme, which “benefitted a lot of productive alliances and even most farmer clubs. They can testify to the difference that the project has made”.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and United Democratic Front (UDF) lawmakers supported the bill, expressing hope that it would positively benefit farmers.
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Speaking on behalf of DPP, Chitipa South parliamentarian Werani Chilenga said the party was excited with the bill because it is going to assist the country in matters of food security.
“However, we, as a party, have some reservations in the sense that we, as a country, are not doing much. This year, we’re going to face acute famine because the government did not put in place enough measures to make sure that we evade hunger,” he told reporters.
Chilenga said there was a need to stock Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation depots to allow Malawians to access maize at an affordable price.
UDF Member of Parliament for Machinga East Esther Jolobala said using a hand-held hoe was unattractive to young people.
She said this pushes youths away from agriculture.
“As such, commercialising agriculture will result in young people getting attracted to agriculture. It will also lead to the creation of jobs,” Jolobala said.
The first phase of Agcom, which comes to an end this year, cost implementers K95 billion.
Meanwhile, Parliament has referred two loan authorisation bills to the Budget and Finance Committee of Parliament for scrutiny before they are passed.
The bills are International Fund for Agricultural Development (additional financing for the Financial Access for Rural Markets, Smallholders and Enterprise Programme) Loan Authorisation.
