Posted on June, 17, 2019 at 10:53 am
Written by Tione Andsen
Government is committed to ensuring that 300 Productive Alliances are formed and graduate about 650,000 smallholder producers from subsistence to commercial farming producing for the local and export market by 2023.
Controller of Agriculture Services, in the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Alexander Bulirani said this Wednesday during Aagricultural Commercialisation (AGCOM) Central Region Private Sector sensitization workshop meeting held at golden peacock hotel in Lilongwe on
He said the investments to develop structured markets, last-mile infrastructure in small-scale irrigation, feeder roads, access to safe water and others will yield huge multiplier effects to the economy.
“Government with credit facility of US$ 95 million from the World Bank Group, is implementing the Agricultural Commercialisation Project (AGCOM). This is a six year project from 2018- 2023 and it is aimed at increasing commercialisation of agriculture value chain products selected under the project,” Bulirani said.
He said unlike other previous interventions, AGCOM follows a value chain approach with strong emphasis on markets.
Bulirani added tha government through this project, aims to transform smallholder farming from subsistence to commercial in order to increase not only the farmers’ incomes but export revenue for the country as well.
He disclosed that Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation and Water Development together with the Ministry of Industry Trade and Tourism are providing a steady leadership to drive this project and ensure it delivers the expected results.
AGCOM National Coordinator, Ted Nankhumwa said the project wants transform the agriculture sector by targeting small holder and medium scale to move from subsistence tom commercial farming.
“We wanted to encourage the small scale famers to produce crops for sale and discourage them for at aiming for consumption and we would help them to access markets,” he said.
AGCOM Project Implementation Unit (PIU), an independent team set up to manage and drive this project on behalf Government.
Source: Malawi News Agency (MANA Online)