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Grow sorghum to counter climate change—Minister

 

Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Allan Chiyembekeza has urged farmers to consider diversification by growing sorghum to counter the effects of climate change.

“Looking at the El Nino [phenomenon], one of the crops we are looking at is sorghum. As you know, it is a drought-tolerant crop and it is being tried in Nsanje,” he said in Blantyre when he opened a five-day Agriculture Workshop on Enhancement of National Agriculture Extension Services Project, which attracted 14 countries in Africa.

Chiyembekeza: It is drought-tolerant
Chiyembekeza: It is drought-tolerant

Malawi is one of the 10 African countries implementing the project funded by Korea-Africa Food and Agriculture Cooperation Initiative (Kafaci).

“Through this programme, we have been able to increase the yield of sorghum from 300 kilogrammes per hectare to 1 700 kilogrammes,” said Chiyembekeza.

Here in Malawi, the project is known as Sorghum Production Enhancement Pilot Project (Spepp) and is being implemented in Nsanje.

Representatives from14 countries and officials from Malawi Government and non-governmental organisations attended the workshop.

South Korea Ambassador Yongkyu Kwon, in an interview, said the project is progressing well in other African countries such as Uganda and is happy with how the project is being managed in Malawi.

“We had a visit to Nsanje and the crop is doing well and we believe that the money we have pumped in this project will help,” he said.

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