By Staff Reporter
The Minister of Agriculture, Sam Kawale has emphasized the importance of collaboration between the government and the private sector in order to achieve food, nutrition, and income security, in line with the National Agriculture Policy and National Agriculture Investment Plan.
Kawale said this on Friday, February16th when he was delivering a keynote address at the Malawi Agriculture Investment Forum held at BICC in Lilongwe.
Kawale stated that his Ministry has initiatives to transform and commercialize the agriculture sector in order to contribute towards economic growth of the country in order to contribute towards achieving Malawi 2063 agenda.
“As government, we are not leaving anyone behind. Our agenda is to empower agriculture sector players to attract investment and explore opportunities for capital investments in various value chains developed under the Hand in Hand initiative including banana production, aquaculture, dairy and rice processing” Kawale said.
Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (MITC) CEO, Paul Kwengwere reiterated Kawale’s sentiments and further urged investors to reach out and explore numerous emerging export opportunities in macadamia nuts, coffee beans, sugar, groundnuts, tea, soya, meat, poultry products among others.
“There is need to improve productivity so that we can have a stable supply of these products to meet foreign markets demand as well as to sustain available markets in different countries such as China, India, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tanzania, Gambia, EU and US,” said Kwengwere
Malawi Agricultural Investment Forum which attracted participants from government, development partners, private sector and academia was sponsored by Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nations (FAO) an organization that is committed to addressing food security issues by promoting diversified food systems that reflect at all levels from local to international markets.
