Malawi in Comesa agriculture project

22 July 2010, The Times Group Publications
URL: http://www.bnltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4221&Itemid=26

Written by Thom Khanje in Lusaka, Zambia

Malawi is one of the eight countries within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) to benefit from a multi-billion kwacha European Union (EU) funded agriculture programme to help farmers access agriculture inputs easily and at competitive prices. 
 

 The Comesa Regional Agro-Inputs Programme (Comrap), to be implemented by Comesa’s specialised agriculture agency – the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (Actesa), was launched on Tuesday in Lusaka Zambia during a ceremony attended by representatives from all the beneficiary countries of the programme.
 
Speaking during the launching ceremony, Comesa’s Assistant Secretary General Steven Kalangizi said Comrap will help three million farmers in eight Comesa landlocked member countries to easily access agro-inputs and enable them produce food and cash crops at competitive costs.
 
Burundi, Rwanda, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe are the other beneficiary countries of the programme.
 
“These countries were heavily hit during the fertiliser crisis of 2007 and 2008 when fertiliser prices sky-rocketed. The landlocked countries were the worst affected because they also had to add the cost of transport to the already high prices of the fertiliser,” said Kalangizi.
 
He said the Comrap programme would work with agro-dealer organisations in the 8 countries to help them come up with measures of cutting costs of bringing inputs such as fertilisers to farmer in their countries.
 
Zambia’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture Allan Mbewe said his country was excited to be part of the project since it will help his country improve production of crops such as the country’s staple food maize.
 
“This year we have realised a record national maize harvest of 2.7 million tonnes. We hope that with programmes like Comrap, Zambia can even produce more maize next year and become completely food secure,” said Mbewe.
 
Malawi’s Rural Market Trust (Rumark) Country Director Godfrey Chapola said in an interview on the sidelines of the meeting that Malawi could benefit from Comrap by accessing resources to improve the capacity and competitiveness of agro-dealers in the country.
 
“Agro-dealers are important in agriculture because they are the direct link to the farmers. They are the ones who bring fertilisers and other inputs closer to the farmer,” said Chapola.
 
The launching ceremony of Comrap has been followed by a two-day consultative workshop on the programme during which Comesa will discuss with beneficiary countries the specific modalities of its implementation.