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The Malawi National Assembly on Thursday evening, adopted motion which is asking Government to begin considering the horticulture as one of the priority areas for the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Wster Development.
This followed the motion under Private Member’s Business where the Lilongwe Central legislature, Lobin Lowe moved “That, considering that there is low production of fruits which in turn promotes high importation of fruits, and considering the importance of fruits at household level regarding source of income, food security and nutritional value, this House resolves that Government should put fruit production processing on the priority list of projects where funding is concerned for Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development.”
Honorable Lowe said success realised in the past interventions when Government prioritised funding for scaling up of cotton and legumes production among others has proven that prioritising also Fruit Production, Malawi will stop importing fruits from neigboring countries.
“While appreciating these efforts, we should accept, as a nation, that by sidelining fruit production for so long, our forex is being wasted through importation of apples, peaches, oranges, and several other fruits our farmers can produce if enough support is provided.” he said
He said it is very worrisome development that almost every type of fruit in local super markets and other markets are importated and said this should serve as a wakeup call that Malawi needs to invest in fruit production which will as well benefit future generation.
“It is unfortunate that our super markets are full of imported fruits and fruit juices which drain our scarce forex. What has become more painful over the recent past is that we have now started eating imported bananas from Tanzania because we have neglected ours for a long period of time until our banana is wiped by deadly banana bunchy top virus. Nobody seems to care.
In these days, where everyone talks about climate-smart agriculture, fruit trees can no longer be ignored.” He said while urging both Government and goodwill organization to allocate resources for fruit production
He underlined that fruit production can bring numerous benefits to farmers. He said fruit farming can serve as farmers pension, help in food security and that with good management, the industry can as well serve as alternative forex earner. He therefore, emphasized that farmers must be assisted financially to help them purchase the fruit seedlings as well as imparting them with skills and knowledge on how they can manage orchards.
Lilongwe Central legislature hinted that Malawi can take advantage of existing struggling fruit production industry as good foundation to begin supporting fruit production.
On this, he among others mentioned citrus industry in Mwanza which its production is drastically declined because of poor management of the old trees and the many mango trees that are avilable in the country.
He further mentioned number of projects that the country can as well take advantage of including Chinese Agricultural Technical Mission which imported Asian, species of fruits, PROSCARP and GTZ promotion of horticulture through Farmers Association (NAFTINA) and currently ICRAF which is assisting with nursery inspection and certification as well as Private owned Malawi Mangoes project in Salima which is growing and processing mangoes and bananas at a large scale.
“There are a lot of food security oriented NGO’s which distributes fruit trees at small scale. All these are opportunities indicating that there is good foundation already laid, such that the Government can start building on” he added
In an interview Lowe said after this motion he will try to follow up with the Ministry to find out what they will do from now on
“If they come up with strategy I will very much appreciate” he said
During the debate on this motion in the chamber, both Government and opposition sides agreed with the legislature and there was almost consensus emphasizing the need to invest in the production of fruit production.
It was noted during the debate that in late 90’s where there were less than 6 qualified horticulturists in the country, Malawi was able to produce enough fruits for domestic consumption as well processing for example Mulanje fruit canning factory which is no more.
But Minister of Industry and Trade, Joseph Mwanamvekha said during the debate that this idea is part of what Malawi is doing and it is part of Buy Malawi Strategy to be launched this Friday by President Peter Mutharika. Equally Minister of agriculture hailed the legislature for coming up with the motion but emphasized that private sector must take a big stake in production of fruits.
