Smallholder farmers in the country have been encouraged to embrace Agricultural Commercialization (AGCOM 2) Project which is said to be ideal for transformation of the country in line with Malawi 2063 Agenda.
This is according to the Director at the Department of Agriculture Extension Services (DAES) in the Ministry of Agriculture who was speaking on Wednesday in Blantyre on the sidelines of a sensitization meeting with journalists under Southern Region Press Club (SRPC).
Soko said AGCOM 2 has come to improve agriculture productivity by transforming smallholder agriculture from subsistence to commercial farming, thereby helping in the realization of Malawi 2063 Agender pillar number one which is “Agriculture Productivity and Commercialisation”.
While wooing smallholder farmers to make use of the project, the Director said the project will as well address challenges smallholder farmers encounter which include lack of markets, saying this will be done by linking farmers to markets where they can sell their produce.
“We are implementing Agricultural Commercialization project( AGRICOM 2). This AGCOM 2, with the total cost estimated at $333 million which is about 600 billion kwacha, will transform this country, especially in line with Malawi 2063 agenda which talks about agriculture productivity and commercialization.
“Through this project we are promoting the business of farming by among other things making sure that farmers are really improving their productivity and again they are also linked to markets. For a long time, farmers have been complaining that they have their produce but they don’t have a markets. This project will among others link them to markets. So we need participation of the farming community across the country,” explained Soko.
Soko further added that he is very hopeful that with the help of the media on increasing participation, come 2028 more smallholder farmers in the country will go commercial thereby making the agriculture commercialization drive achievable.
He further mentioned that the good thing about agriculture commercialization drive is that it has some very important pillars which include promoting mechanization, productivity and also empowerment of farmers.
The Director continued by praising AGCOM 1 which he said has set a good foundation where close to 300 farmer organizations acquired important assets, 95 tractors were bought, over 100 warehouses were built, the machines were procured, and some of the important elements which were not easy to acquire, were bought by the farmer.
Soko also reported that farmers who work very hard in AGCOM 1, will now graduate from just producing and qualify to be doing agro-processing, value addition, including exporting.
