Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Collen Zamba has called for increased investment and collaborative efforts to improve agribusiness industry in Malawi.
Zamba made the call in Lilongwe when she presided over the launch for the 2023-2027 strategic plan for AGRA Malawi.
She said agribusiness is a core driver of transformation is agri-industrialization because of its potential to increase productivity and exports.
“It is encouraged that you have an institution organization coming up with a strategy, because once you have a plan it puts you in check.
“Actually this has through stakeholder participation and discussions, including government so the plan is allied to our agenda 2063 and also to the delivery vision of the present, on food security, worthy creation and job creation.
Another thing is that they are dealing with food systems part on market access, straitening productivity and mainly for the smallholder farmers, women and youth, so it really aliens to the vision this country,” Zamba said.
Country Representative for AGRA Malawi, Sophie Chitedze, said their starting point would be to advance agricultural productivity through inclusive markets and trade by strengthening marketing policies and seed systems as well as sustainable farming and they will also look into access to finance and digital technology.
“Access to markets and trade come up as a pertinent issue that is bringing a gap, and we thought like our entry point will be sustainable farming but from stakeholder consultations we learnt that inclusive markets and trade should be the entry point that should trigger small holder farmers to produce because if they know where to sell and particular qualities they need to produce they go into better production,” she said.
She also added that they have been going through different stakeholder consultations with different Malawian business people for them to come up with the strategy and with there experience in implementing businesses they hope to greater heights.
AGRA Malawi mainly aims at catalyzing an inclusive agri-food system transformation of Malawi through competitive agro-processing industry that drives farmer productivity, resilience and dignified work opportunities particularly for the youth and vulnerable people.