Farmers promised ‘decent incomes’

Opening Malawi’s tobacco-selling season yesterday, President Peter Mutharika expressed optimism that ‘2016 will be the year when farmers will earn decent incomes from their labor’, according to a story in The Nyasa Times.

It won’t be before time. A Wikipedia entry has it that Malawi began exporting tobacco in 1893.

Speaking at Kanengo, in Lilongwe, Mutharika said that he would do all he could to support the country’s tobacco farmers and its tobacco industry for the good of stakeholders and of the whole nation.

He said he was aware of the many challenges being faced by the industry’s players, especially its farmers, but he gave assurances that he intended to “iron them out”.

The President noted that tobacco was important in driving the country’s economy and that, as such, it needed to be well supported.  “Tobacco is a very serious matter,” he said. “It has been the life of our economy, our life. More than ever, our tobacco industry faces challenges we have never known before. They are challenges we must face and conquer together.”

Mutharika said that much as there was a call for fair prices every year, the buyers never walked the talk.

But he said that his government would make sure that farmers got what they deserved for their hard work.

At the same time, Mutharika promised, the administration would create better regulation of the industry, provide affordable fertilizer for farmers, and protect farmers by investing in drought and climate change mitigation.

The Limbe auction floors are due to open on April 18 and the Mzuzu market is scheduled to start on April 20.