Minister bemoans exporting raw products
Minister of Agriculture Lobin Lowe has urged delegates to the 2021 Agriculture Joint Sector Review (AJSR) to come up with solutions for the country to cut on exporting raw materials.
He said this yesterday in Lilongwe when he opened AJSR for the year ending which attracted experts in the agriculture sector to review how the sector performed in the year and suggest solutions for improvement.
Lowe said the country loses alot of potential forex by exporting raw products which attract less monetary value as opposed to processed products.
“We lose twice because we lose the money we would have realised by exporting processed products and secondly, we export alot of labour to the countries which buy our raw products,” he said.
The minister blamed lack of collaboration within the ministry and between the ministry and its stakeholders.
However, he touted the positives registered within the year through programmes such as the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) and strengthening of irrigation systems.
“You have noticed that for the first time, there is a component of livestock in AIP and that is targeting the Shire Valley where livestock farming does better than crop production,” said Lowe.
The November 2021 Emergency Agriculture and Food Security Surveillance (EmA-FSS) bulletin shows that families relying on purchases as the main source of food at household level are at 39.9 percent, a drop from 65.6 percent from 2020.
It further shows that 58.3 percent of farmers are still consuming food produced by themselves while in 2020 the number was at 31.3 percent.
The United States Agency for International Development mission director Cattie Lotie, who was the co-chairperson at the review, said the agriculture sector has done well in many programmes, but has to improve on commercialisation and value addition.
“If the ministry can work on these two areas then both government and farmers will be at a better position and agricultural reforms being implemented will yield good results,” she said.
Lotiealso urged government to prioritise protection of the environment as a major mitigating factor of climate change which she said continues threatening the agriculture sector.
