Mining & Trade News

There is need for more Malawians to invest in mechanized commercial agriculture if the country is to meet its aspirations contained in the Malawi 2063 vision.

State President Lazarus Chakwera said this at the launch of the 10 year implementation plan for Malawi 2063 that was held at Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe.

He said a person’s educational qualifications or economic status should not be a deterrent factor from participating in farming activities.

Chakwera said: “There are some in our midst who still need to be convinced to start farming because they think they are too educated or too cool to farm.”

“I notice that the Implementation Plan says that we need to digitize farming in order to make it more attractive to young people.”

“I believe that this is not the right way to say it. The right way to say it is that we need to digitize farming in order to make farming more efficient and more productive, and at the same time, we need to reeducate our youth to understand that farming is one of the surest paths to the wealth and prosperity they desire.”

He said there is need for more young people in Malawi’s colleges and universities to be aspiring either to use their education to make farming smarter or to use farming as a foundation for building wealth they can invest in building other industries they are trained in.

“There is no reason a person trained as a doctor cannot build wealth from smart farming and use that wealth to build a hospital. There is no reason a person trained as a teacher cannot use wealth from smart farming and use that wealth to build a school,” he said.

The Malawi 2063 blueprint, which seeks to transform Malawi into a middle income country by the year 2063, has prioritized agricultural commercialization, diversification and mechanization.

The government aims at transforming the agricultural industry from subsistence to commercial farming by encouraging farmers to not only be growing crops like maize only for their households, but engage in large scale farming that will see them using large scale machines in the farms.

Agriculture remains the mainstay of the economy, contributing close to a quarter of the country’s GDP and employing about 64 percent of the labour force.

Close to 80 percent of Malawians rely on rain-fed smallholder agriculture for food.

Though the sector is enjoying huge financial support from both the Government and development partners, production and productivity has remained below its potential and is insufficient to match the increasing demand from domestic and export markets because of low levels of improved farm input use, limited private investment, and low mechanization levels, among others.

Government’s agricultural commercialization drive is eyeing incorporating the use of heavy machinery that will ease workforce that farmers encounter.

The National Planning Commission (NPC), the driver of the MW2063, has prioritized youths as main players in the vision saying they are a fundamental human resource capital.

NPC’s Chairperson Prof. Richard Mkandawire said: “On this journey, our main assets remain the youth, including the girl child. And rightly so, the MIP-1 emphasizes engendered interventions that will promote youth engagement both in action and benefits through-out its Pillars and Enablers.”

“Along with this will be ensuring that our education system and institutions of higher learning are capacitated by both state and non-state actors as purveyors of relevant and employable skills. Skills that should be aligned to the MIP-1 priorities and Malawi 2063 vision generally.”

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