Watering MW2063 through mega farms

* All these years, I depended on rain-fed farming, which has not been very rewarding due to recurring climate shocks—beneficiary farmer, Emily Chamwalira

* I know this is possible because I have seen those who joined the cooperative in 2017 developing—Beatrice Kauzungu

By Leah Malimbasa, MANA

For over two decades, 42-year-old Emily Chamwalira has been a farmer — but like many farmers in her village Lauchi, Traditional Authority Katunga in Chikwawa District, Chamwalira has nothing tangible to show for her hard-work.

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“All these years, I depended on rain-fed farming, which has not been very rewarding due to recurring climate shocks, such as droughts and floods,” she says.

Chamwalira adds that she joined the Katunga-Maseya (Kama) Sugarcane Growers Cooperative Society Limited with hope that she will be able to afford school fees for her two children as well as a decent home for her family.

“I know this is possible because I have seen those who joined the cooperative in 2017 developing,” she says.

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Beatrice Kauzungu, one of the founding members of the cooperative currently lives Chamwalira’s dream, and she recalls wallowing in poverty before being introduced to irrigation through the cooperative.

“I was a subsistence farmer, but my maize yields could not take us to the next harvesting season,” she recalls.

Kauzungu adds that through irrigation farming and her membership at Kama cooperative, she has successfully dealt with the food insecurity that her family was struggling with.

“In addition to that, I manage to pay for my child’s tuition fees at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences, and I have built a decent house,” she explains.

Collins Ntalika

According to Kama Sugarcane Growers Cooperative Society Limited chairperson Collins Ntalika, the cooperative has a membership of 2,193 farmers with 194 farmers already benefitting through Chisanja Scheme, which started operating after they got a loan of K281 million which was used to develop 103 hectares.

“We started getting dividends in 2019,” he explains, adding that they finished servicing the loan in 2022. “The profits we got from the scheme motivated us to start up two more schemes, namely M’bwana with a hectarage of 692 and Dambo, which sits on 377 hectares.”

In February this year, the cooperative received a K5.3 billion grant from the Agricultural Commercialisation (AGCOM) project, a Malawi Government flagship programme for transforming smallholder agriculture from mostly subsistence to commercial farming.

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According to AGCOM national coordinator, Ted Nankhumwa, the project is working towards achieving Pillar 1 of the country’s long-term development agenda, the MW2063, which is about agriculture productivity and commercialisation.

“We initially planned to reach 200 groups, but we have so far exceeded the initial figure and we have assisted 352 as well as disbursing grants worth about US$25 million [about K30 billion],” he says.

Nankhumwa further discloses that this cooperative will be cultivating sugarcane, and they already have an off-taker, PressCane Limited, which will be used to produce ethanol.

Located in Chikwawa on the west bank of the Shire River, about 55km south of Blantyre, PressCane Limited — a subsidiary of the conglomerate Press Corporation Plc — started operations in June 2004 and distills ethanol fuel, among others.

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Its Chief Executive Officer, Bryson Mkhomaanthu admits that the arrangement is mutually beneficial to the farmers and his company, saying PressCane needs supplementary sugarcane from the cooperative to meet the demand for ethanol production.

“We are producing ethanol under capacity, so this will help us to produce additional 12 million litres of ethanol per year. Currently, we are producing about 15 million litres, but the demand is at 60 million litres a year.

“Apart from ethanol, we will be producing biogas to generate two megawatts of electricity and organic fertilizer,” explains Mkhomaanthu.

For President Chakwera, the private sector mega farms initiative is the right step towards boosting Malawi’s food security and eliminating poverty in the country.

During the launch of Kama cooperative in Chikwawa about two weeks ago, Chakwera said the mega farms will play a big role in ending poverty as well as achieving food security.

“We are called an agro-based economy yet we produce so little,” he had said. “We need to produce more and export more. Today we are launching a cooperative that is creating hundreds of jobs; this shows we are serious about agricultural commercialisation and that is why we are putting in K5.3 billion into Kama cooperative as a grant.”

Chakwera, who handed over two tractors and a pickup vehicle to farmers of Kama cooperative, commended World Bank for their support through AGCOM project and urged beneficiaries to utilize well the grant to achieve desired results through irrigation farming.

In 2016, Malawi launched the National Irrigation Policy which was tipped to transform Malawi’s Agriculture sector.

However, irrigation expert Grivin Chipula says implementation of this policy and development strategy is a mixed bag. 

“For example, increasing land under irrigation; this aspect has so far been a success with the coming in of various projects, including the PRIDE [Programme for Rural Irrigation Development] and the Shire Valley Transformation Programme, which is developing about 20,000 hectares in phase one. 

“However, much as land is being developed for irrigation, utilisation has been a major concern as farmers’ adoption of irrigated agriculture seems inconsistent,” explains Chipula.

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Chipula adds that the policy also mentions establishment of a well-coordinated marketing system, noting that this output has been hampered by a lot of factors, which include road and transport systems. 

“However, there is hope that projects such as TRADE and the MCC [Millennium Challenge Corporation], with components on road infrastructure development, will help in solving the mobility challenge for agriculture produce in the rural areas,” he says.

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