The National Agriculture Fair (NAF) is a sector- specific exhibition, whose purpose is to promote growth and development in the Agricultural value chain. The fair, which was held under the theme: Driving Towards Export-Oriented Agriculture through Commercialization and Innovation. Attracted almost 200 exbitors both local International.

Malawi President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera and Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi officially opened the 20th National Agriculture Fair at the Chichiri Trade Fair Grounds in Blantyre which held from 29 August to 31 August 2024.

Nyusi & Chakwera cut the ribbon (source: mana)

Key Facts About Malawi Agriculture:

Maize is the major food crop and is the focus of Malawi’s policy agenda, but tobacco has been and continues to be the dominant cash crop. Tobacco is responsible for more than 40 percent of the country’s annual export earnings, with additional cash crops including dried legumes, sugar, tea, cotton, and nuts.

Challenges facing Malawi’s Agriculture:

Malawi has a lot of inadequacies in its agriculture sector and systems such as paucity in the science and knowledge of current and future impacts of climate change on agriculture, weak institutional and inadequate technical capacities, limited technological innovation and low adoption as well as poor infrastructure. The smallholder agriculture sector in Malawi remains unprofitable and is characterised by low uptake of improved farm inputs, weak links to markets, high transport costs, few farmer organizations, poor quality control and lack of information on markets and prices.

Solutions to Malawi’s Agriculture

1. promoting a sustainable increase in productivity and diversifying the types of crops grown;
2. increasing incomes of farm enterprises by developing local value addition of raw staple food crops; and.
3. supporting better governance by improving information flows.

Opportunities in Malawi’s Agriculture

Leading sub-sectors in the agriculture industry in Malawi include tobacco, crop farming, livestock production, horticulture, fisheries and aquaculture, irrigation, and agro-processing. Malawi’s desire to move away from reliance on rain-fed agriculture is opening opportunities for irrigation farming.

Out & About at the National Agriculture fair

There was a lot to learn from especially for people passionate about agriculture. Personally I realised there are quite alot of products made in Malawi but we rarely see them in our local shelfs.

Had an amazing chat with the Admarc marketing team. The team is really innovative, the main challenge remains it’s a government institution too much red tape just to get simple things done. If all goes well by the end of September expect the following Admarc products across your favourite retailers shelfs i.e Mealie meal, Corn flakes, Tinned baked beans & Cooking oil

Admarc has the capacity to produce high quality products for both local & export market. Malawi government should help Admarc in getting the much needed finances to procure machinery so that production meets both national & export demand.

Cassava flour from my hometown of Nkhotakota produced by Kankhuyu creations. Cassava flour is for baking purposes since Malawi doesn’t produce enough wheat flour, cassava flour is a local alternative flour to help reduce the import bill.