Chakwera eyeing continental food basket status

Malawi: Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of Malawi, believes the country has the potential to become the world's largest food basket, citing the country's vast swaths of arable land as a unique natural treasure for revolutionising agriculture, writes Watipaso Mzungu.

Chakwera spoke at the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) in New York, United States.

He claims that Malawi's vast swaths of arable land, combined with commanding stewardship of vast amounts of fresh water, make it the ideal platform for an agricultural revolution that will serve as the foundation for a new era of economic prosperity.

“We are ready to do it, and so the only question I have for you is: How else can I help make it easier for Nuveen to come to create an agricultural revolution in Malawi?” he asked.

Chakwera expressed concern that, despite having alluvial soils, Africa is unable to feed itself and is heavily reliant on Europe for food.

At this point, Malawi's President praised Ukraine for working tirelessly to ship food to Africa despite the ongoing conflict with Russia.

He said: “One of the saddest images I saw some weeks ago is of a ship coming from Ukraine carrying wheat to Africa. While that image captures the resilience of Ukraine in that it is still feeding the world at a time it is fighting for its own survival, it is also an indictment of the world in its failure to leverage Africa’s potential to be the world’s bread basket.

“This is something I believe we must change, and I am grateful for this opportunity to address to you how we can change that together. It is an established fact that there is hardly any crop that does not grow in Africa’s rich soils.”

Chakwera also stated that Malawi is investing in infrastructure development, particularly in the transport sector, in order to modernise roads and rehabilitate the railway system in preparation for the cross-border movement of agricultural commodities produced by this revolution.

He stated that his government wants Malawi to be a viable location for agro-industrialization so that its people can add value to the crops they grow and export processed goods that meet international standards and have a higher market value than raw goods.

“But that agro-industrialization agenda requires more electricity than the country has historically produced, which is why I have made it a top priority to triple the electricity generation capacity of Malawi by the year 2025,” he said.