Chitipa farmers bemoan low prices for produce

By Joseph Mbughi, MANA

Farmers in Chitipa are worried that they will not realise profits from the sale of their farm produce, describing vendors’ offer as low.

The situation comes amidst lack of alternative markets for farmers to sell their produce in the district.

A farmer from Mwamkumbwa Extension Planning Area (EPA) told Malawi News Agency (MANA) on Saturday that prices offered by vendors do no match with the cost of investment spent on the production of the farm produce.

Despite the low prices, Naswila said farmers have opted selling their produce to vendors for lack of alternative markets at a competitive prices.

“Vendors are going door to door buying produce at low prices and since we don’t have better markets we have no option but to sell,” he said.

He appealed to Admarc to open its markets saying their prices are better than those offered by vendors.

One of the vendors, Asakile Mwakambaya told this reporter that they are buying maize at K110 per kg, beans at K325, soya at K225 and sunflower at K130 since the supply is currently higher than demand.

In April this year, government announced minimum gate prices for selected crops for the 2019/2020 agricultural season such as maize pegged at K200, rice K600, pure beans at K450 all quoted as per kilogram.

Admarc public relations officer, Agnes Ndovi told MANA that rainfall patterns have delayed the buying of agricultural produce in the Northern Region.

“We opened and started buying various crops on April 14 this year in the Southern Region in accordance with the crop calendar since people have already harvested in the South while we are waiting for people to complete harvesting in the North,” Ndovi said. 

According to Ndovi, Admarc has managed to buy 9,000 metric tons of maize, 3,000 metric tons of soya, 400 metric tons of beans and 500 metric tons of cotton and their markets are still open and will continue to buy more, as crops are being harvested.