Lilongwe: Some economic commentators have supported the government's drive to champion a fast-tracked export development initiative through intensified agricultural production whose output is expected to start earning foreign exchange for the country within 12 months. Finance Minister Ken Lipenga has since urged the private sector to come up with detailed proposals on how the government can support export generation ventures.
The technocrats says Malawi must utilise its available water and land resources to satisfy the ever increasing global food demand by massively producing rice, groundnuts, pigeon peas, soya and maize.
Farmers Union of Malawi (Fum) Felix Jumbe said the government must re-organise the agricultural produce marketing system to specifically focus on consolidating forex earning generating from food crops and not only tobacco.
"The demand for food will never go down across the world. For your own information, just 500,000 metric tonnes of rice can earn us US$400 million, which is what tobacco normally brings," said Jumbe.
He said if Malawi could product just 1 million tonnes each of beans, groundnuts, soya and pigeon peas and properly market them to other countries, the country could address its foreign exchange shortages in just one year.
But he said for that to happen, Malawians should change their mentality of growing food crops for commercial purposes, not just for consumption. "Before 1994, Malawi used to earn forex from food crops but everyone rushed for tobacco as it was seen to be the easier way to make money," said Jumbe.
He said it was high time the government restructured the agricultural systems and come up with a focussed marketing strategy so that earnings from food crops are well accounted than is the case now.
He said food security can also be achieved with adequate forex reserves that can be used to acquire maize cheaply rather than burdening the government with production costs.
Alliance Capital Limited Chief Executive Chikavu Nyirenda said implementation of already existing programmes such as the One Village One Product (Ovop) and the Greenbelt Initiative must be used to heighten food crops production for exports.
"Global food demand is always high. As we speak, there are markets out there ready to be satisfied with food crops but what we need to sustain and grow supplies and add value to the food crops so that more exports are earned under programmes such as Ovop and the Greenbelt Initiative," Nyirenda said.
Commenting on the suggestions, Lipenga said it is practical to earn more foreign exchange in the short term by taking advantage of the global food demand.
"The government has been exploring the idea to grow more food crops for the export market but value addition is key in all this, what we would want from the private sector, Farmers Union in particular, is to approach us with detailed proposals so that we see how best to assist them to create sustainability in such a brilliant idea," said Lipenga.
Currently, the Reserve Bank of Malawi is reported to have set up a K25 billion Export Development Fund aimed at increasing non-traditional export crops. Apart from tobacco, Malawi's major export crops include tea, sugar and coffee.
