The Irrigation Farming Project, in which the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development engaged private companies and farmers to cultivate maize for the Strategic Grain Reserves (SGR), has flopped, Malawi News has learnt.
Information gathered at the ministry indicates that the it awarded contracts to 10 companies, who were supposed to supply a total of 9,879 metric tonnes (MTs) of maize. But the companies only supplied 3,793 MTs.
We have also gathered that only four out of the 10 companies managed to deliver maize to the SGR. Out of the four, only Demeter Agriculture and White Church General Dealers managed to meet their targets of 2,800 and 40 MTs, respectively.
Illovo Sugar Company was supposed to deliver 2, 264 MTs but delivered 923 MTs while Nexus Investment was supposed to deliver 500 MTs but delivered 210 MTs.
The rest including Nchalo Cane Growers, Andrew Ndovie, Anthony Banda, Muloza General Farming, S. Phiri and Chilanga Farmers Trust did not produce the maize.
The ministry paid a total of K1, 305, 279,671.17 to the companies that supplied the maize upon delivery confirmation by SGR.
The ministry’s Chief Agriculture Officer (Crop), Osborne Tsoka, said the other companies and individuals did not produce maize under irrigation due to inadequate water availability in their irrigation sites since the 2015/2016 growing season was characterised by dry spells. “…while the other individuals and companies thought that government was to provide seed money since they did not have resources to produce, besides having access to irrigable land.”
According to Tsoka, although government engaged Illovo in the irrigated maize initiative some years back, this is the first time for the ministry to engage the private sector in an irrigated maize project of this nature.
“This year, the project may not be there because the recently released crop estimates are indicating that farmers will have better production. Irrigated maize production was there last season because of reduced crop yields due to dry spells. The companies’ contracts were only for one year,” he said.
Illovo Sugar Corporation Public Relations officer, Irene Phalula, confirmed that Illovo has a contract with the ministry but could not say much, saying the contents of the contract are confidential.
Agriculture economics expert, Tamani-Nkhono Mvula, says the ministry did not handle the programme properly from the time it asked interested individuals and companies to bid, to the time the individuals and companies were expected to supply the maize.
“I think the adverts came in late, plus they didn’t contain much information. In addition to that, the government wasn’t clear on the nature of engagement [in terms of] whether it was going to provide initial commitment from the start. That’s why you might have noticed that some companies and individuals failed to supply the maize,” he said.
Mvula noted that the individuals and companies might have been afraid of committing themselves to the cause when the information was not clear on the timeframe of the project.
“Irrigation can’t just be a one off thing because it involves a heavy investment, especially in infrastructure. It can’t just be a once off investment. It would have been good if this was a continuous thing,” he said.
Farmers Union of Malawi Chief Executive Officer, Prince Kapondam’gaga, said the union was not involved in the selection of farmers.
He, however, said it is unfair to conclude that local farmers have failed to supply irrigated maize to the government.
“We are not so sure that, indeed, these are full farmers or those that just took a chance after realising that there was an opportunity. If the ministry had involved us in the selection process, maybe the case would have been different as we would have assisted accordingly,” Kapondam’gaga said.
But he was quick to point out that, despite the shortfalls, the initiative can be used as one way of empowering farmers.
Kapondam’gaga said the initiative can also help depoliticise maize marketing as farmers would have a ready market for their produce.
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