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Malawi President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has commended the Southern African Agriculture Union (SACAU) for including small-scale farmers in its projects and empowering them to become part of the value chain, moving away from being subsistence farmers.
President Chakwera stated this at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, when officials from SACAU, the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Association of Smallholder Farmers of Malawi (NASFAM) briefed him on the SACAU meeting.
The conference will open tomorrow at the Bingu International Conference Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe and the Head of State is expected to be the guest of honour at the conference.
In his speech, President Chakwera commended the Business Federation of South Africa for inviting him to the event as the owner’s guest and said his vision was to make Malawi self-reliant.
“Agriculture is our lifeline. We want to be a self-reliant country. There is a lot of arable land in Africa,” the Malawian leader said, adding: “Africa has served the world and we should continue to serve the world.”
Dr. Sinare Sinare, chairperson of the South African Agricultural Development Alliance, said the regional organization has a keen interest in smallholder farmers and hopes to help them develop.
“We don’t want small farmers to remain small farmers forever,” Sinare Sinare stressed.
Dr. Betty Chinyamunyamu, Chief Executive Officer of NASFAM, said the SACAU conference is an important platform for sharing lessons and experiences of success and failure in the agriculture sector.
Chiamunyamu also values a good working relationship with the Ministry of Agriculture.
“We have a responsibility to work with government to transform agriculture,” she said.
SACAU is a membership-based regional farmers’ organization representing the common interests of farmers in Southern Africa.
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