Agriculture experts have encouraged smallholder farmers in the country to embrace organic farming as research proves that it is sustainable and cost-effective.
Principal Investigator in agro-ecological research for Soils Food and Health Communities Organisation, Professor Rachel Bezner Kerr, made the remarks at Ekwendeni in Mzimba North during a stakeholder workshop to evaluate agricultural policies that can help Malawi and other regional countries to fully implement the methodology.
Addressing different stakeholders, Professor Rachel Bezner Kerr said organic farming is affordable as many poor smallholder farmers cannot manage to purchase farm inputs due to current rising prices on the global level.
“Currently many smallholder farmers who are not under the AIP beneficiary list cannot afford to buy fertilisers and other inputs and farmers must adopt ecological ways of increasing production and controlling pests and diseases in their fields,” she said.
Commenting on the development, Crop Protection Officer for Mzimba North, Mwiza Munthali, called for further engagements and different stakeholder participation in the farming technology.
According to the Advocacy Programme Coordinator for Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM), Paul Chilewa, revisiting African Governments’ agriculture policies can help to incorporate organic farming.
Organic farming is practised on a large scale in Uganda and Morocco.
