By Kondanani Chilimunthaka

Malawi President, Lazarus Chakwera on Thursday, June 9,2022 ordered the Ministry of Agriculture to start establishing the Mega farms which were promised as part of his campaign ahead of 2019 elections.

Chakwera made the call during the official opening of 2022 Agricultural Productivity and Commercialization Conference at Bingu International Conference Centre in the city of Lilongwe.

Addressing the conference, President Chakwera said; “As you can see, What we lack is not policy direction or investment opportunities or public pronouncements regarding agricultural productivity and commercialization through mega farms. What we lack is implementation of these policies and pronouncements by the Ministry of Agriculture. After two years of my administration, the Ministry has yet to produce a single mega farm anywhere in the country, and this is so failure I no longer have patience to abide. For this reason, I am giving the Ministry of Agriculture six months to produce results that the eyes of Malawians can see. We can not go into 2023 with this business-as-usual approach. Not in my watch.

The time for action on mega farms is not next year. It is now. “Lamented President Chakwera during the opening of the Conference.

He further told the conference that he is much optimistic that with the resources Malawi has, it is possible to be among the world’s largest crop producers.

“My purpose in coming today is to issue an urgent call to action. As much as I respect conferences of talking shops that create synergy of ideas and policies in the agricultural sector, I am afraid the time for talking is past. This is the moment for action, because we already know what our situation as a nation with an agro-based economy demands.”

The President told the conference that there is enough to what is working and what is not for the country to seriously consider doing differently, adding that it has been long since he launched his manifesto that included the promise to create mega farms to boost agricultural productivity and commercialization.

“It’s been thirty eight months since I launched a manifesto that included the promise to create mega farm to boost agricultural productivity and commercialization. It’s been eighteen months since I launched the Malawi 2063 vision, which makes it clear that the Malawi we want by 2063 is an inclusively wealthy, self-reliant, and middle-income industrialized nation built on the foundation of agricultural production, industrialization, mechanization, and commercialization.” Said Malawi leader in his speech.

Further, President Chakwera told the conference that the ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Area opened the doors for markets all over Africa for country’s agricultural products, saying his administration has negotiated several bilateral trade agreements on the continent with the aim of putting the Trade Area to full use.