Chakwera champions Agricultural mechanisation in Malawi

President Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has demonstrated demonstrated zeal , and love for the country in as far as agriculture commercialisation is concerned.

Chakwera has demonstrated this through the political will which he has shown so far. He has stressed the need on mechanisation.

Optimization of agriculture productivity is one key policy and programmatic focus of Malawi 2063 Pillar One.

Mechanization is one of the strategic investment interventions needed to spearhead the drive to higher agriculture productivity and commercialized agriculture system.

While other previous leaders were just lipserving, President Dr Lazarus Chakwera has proved to be the one who is geared to implement such policy drive in Agriculture.

Malawi 2063 agenda has made the following directive on mechanisation and these include the observation that access and distribution of machinery and equipment play a central role in the development of agricultural mechanization.

Further more it is observed that limited access to mechanization, coupled with a narrow financial and technical capacity to mechanize, especially among
smallholder farmers, undermines agricultural development in Malawi.

Again Malawi agenda 2063 demand fostering private-public partnerships in
efforts aimed at enhancing Mechanization as well as deepening investment in local technical capacity building in usage of mechanization services and products.

President Chakwera is already doing well in terms of capacity partnership. More companies are coming to Malawi for the same such as Mahindra which further transfer skills to Malawians.

As we speak Ministry of agriculture through Malawi Government Investment programme has bought 8 heavy duty tractors to be distributed to all ADDs and enhance productivity in line with Malawi 2063 agenda.

Agriculture mechanization involves economic application of engineering technology to increase labor efficiency,
for higher productivity and commercialization of agriculture products and services.

It covers all levels of farming and processing technologies, from simple and basic hand tools to more sophisticated
and motorized equipment, applied in activities such as ploughing, harvesting, processing, and marketing of agriculture products.

It is believed that mechanisation will help Malawi achieve commercialisation within the broader focus of Agriculture Productivity and Commercialization as the first pillar of Malawi 2063 is promotion of mechanization in the agriculture sector towards a highly productive
and commercialized agriculture sector and this is according to National
Planning Commission 2020 dossier.