Malawi is still unable to make the most of existing export market opportunities for grains and legumes with market demand now estimated at over $9 billion, the AHL Commodities Exchange (AHCX) has said.<\/p>\n
AHCX blames the situation on underproduction, heavy reliance on subsistence farming and Malawi\u2019s inability to diversify away from tobacco.<\/p>\n
AHCX General Manager, Davis Manyenje, said demand for legumes remains wide and untapped both locally and internationally.<\/p>\n
Manyenje was speaking during a meeting AHCX hosted for journalists in Lilongwe over the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cSubsistence mindset limits productivity, hence the continued low production for commodities that have high demand on international markets. There is need for proper production planning,\u201d Mayenje said.<\/p>\n
He said low understanding and use of unstructured markets for grains and legumes have also contributed to low earnings the country gets from these crops.<\/p>\n
He cited, for instance, that the economy is losing not less than $250 million a year through informal trading of various commodities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is having a huge impact to the economy as money which was meant to grow the economy is externalised,\u201d Manyenje said.<\/p>\n
Figures from AHCX show that the Exchange only exported 13,970 metric tonnes of grain and legumes in the two years up to April 2016.<\/p>\n
Manyenje then said the nation needs to be aggressive in implementing the National Export Strategy (NES) by promoting crops which were already identified.<\/p>\n
In his presentation, Head of Operations at AHCX, Wise Chauluka, faulted lack of proper structures as a major hindrance to growth of commodity exchanges.<\/p>\n
He said Malawians need to change mindset and approach to agriculture if the country it to tap the most from the existing external market demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cMalawi\u2019s current position is a reflection of how we think. Malawi has capacity to change its misfortune in no time through agriculture only if we shift the mindset,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He recommended a shift from heavy reliance on the production end alone, instead calling on stakeholders to invest in value addition, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malawi is still unable to make the most of existing export market opportunities for grains and legumes with market demand now estimated at over $9 billion, the AHL Commodities Exchange (AHCX) has said. AHCX blames the situation on underproduction, heavy reliance on subsistence farming and Malawi\u2019s inability to diversify away from tobacco. AHCX General Manager, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":39485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39507,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39482\/revisions\/39507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}