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Tawonga Cooking Oil Enterprise Boosts Market and Employment for Mzimba Farmers
Tawonga Cooking Oil Processing Enterprise provides local market and jobs for sunflower, soya farmers in Mzimba through producing cooking oil, animal feeds, soap, peanut butter-Victor Musongole.
Malawi: Tawonga Cooking Oil Processing Enterprise has created a ready market and employment for sunflower and soya farmers in Mzimba by producing cooking oil, animal feeds, soap, and peanut butter, which are sold locally at the factory, writes Victor Musongole.
Three men formed the factory in 2019 after receiving training from the Small and Medium Enterprise Development and noticing that many farmers around the area were selling their produce to vendors at lower prices.
Baston Mfune, Chairperson for Tovwirane Community Based Organization, says the arrival of the factory has given them an opportunity to have a steady market for their produce, apart from giving them an opportunity to sell the cooking oil produced at the factory.
"The coming in of the factory has given us an opportunity to have a steady market for our produce," Mfune says.
Embangweni Women's Cooperative, which has 60 members, is all praise for the factory, saying that its arrival has boosted their profits from farm produce as the factory is buying the product at a higher price while using a certified weighing scale.
Jennifer Banda, Chairperson for Embangweni Women Cooperative, says, "Vendors were buying our products below government-set prices, and we could not make substantive profits. When the factory came, they started giving us high-quality certified seeds and bought our produce at higher prices."
22-year-old Emmie Manda, one of the first employees of the factory, dropped out of school in 2019 due to a lack of school fees.
After saving some funds from her salary, Manda is ready to sit for her Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) exams, as she is now able to pay for her fees.
"I dropped out of school due to a lack of fees in 2019, so the same year I was employed at Tawonga Factory, and with proceeds from here, I'm planning to go back to school, and currently, I'm able to support my family with all of their necessary needs," Manda says.
Salimu Saidi, a seller of cooking oil, says the factory has helped him boost his business.
"I make more profit in my shop when selling Tawonga oil than others; the locally-produced oil is loved by many here because it's affordable compared to others. They are also making livestock feeds that are affordable and available at all times. I have also increased my flock because I have a steady supply of feed from the factory," says Saidi, a retailer who also rears animals.
One of the factory's directors, Wongani Changala Munyenyembe, says they came up with the idea after noticing the difficulties farmers were having selling their sunflowers.
He says the factory is currently working with three farming cooperatives and one CBO, where they give seeds and buy at the end of the season.
He adds that, apart from cooking oil, they now make peanut butter, soap, and livestock feed after learning from Kondwani Kachamba Ngwira's online tutorials.
Lack of entrepreneurial skills, operating capital, and marketing skills are some of the problems that farmers and entrepreneurs face in Malawi, according to a report that attributes the challenges to high-interest rates as some of the factors hindering youth from venturing into business.