Pyxus Agriculture Limited urges farmers to adopt modern groundnuts farming
Lilongwe-based groundnut buying and processing company Pyxus Agriculture Limited has urged both small and large scale farmers in the country to quickly adopt modern methods of cultivating groundnuts for them to get high yields and realize enough profits from the crop.
Pyxus Agriculture Limited Managing Director Ronald Ngwira made the call last Thursday at his company’s Mpale Farm in Dowa during a field day learning tour by some large-scale groundnuts growers who were drawn from different farming groups and other agricultural based cooperatives in the central.
Ngwira disclosed that groundnuts as a crop needs to be cultivated using modern farming technologies, prime among them being planting fast mature varieties on double rows, applying crop boosting chemicals such as inoculants and fertilizer as well as applying pesticides and fungicides on time.
According to Ngwira, currently majority of local farmers do not realize enough profits from groundnuts production due to their insistence on planting some very old groundnuts varieties such as Chalimbana which takes about five months to mature but at the same time produces low yields.
“As Pyxus we are encouraging farmers in the country including those who are under contract with us to plant improved groundnuts varieties such as CG9 and other newly developed varieties as they are capable of producing enough yields per hectare, its marketable and therefore have the potential to give them enough profits during marketing,” said Ngwira.
He disclosed that a CG9 groundnut variety which has been planted on double row and applied with all the required inputs and chemicals such as inoculants, fertilizer and pesticides among others can produce about 2,700 kilograms per hectare comparing to only 900 kilograms if a farmer does not follow the modern cultivation mechanisms.
According to Ngwira, this farming season, his company has signed agreements with about 10,000 smallholder farmers across the country who have cultivated the crop under contract arrangements as well as other large-scale farmers who have also grown groundnuts on Pyxus owned land under its In-Grower initiative.
“In addition to our 10,000 contracted smallholder farmers, we have also introduced the In-Grower program in which we have given land to some farmers in some of our farms including here at Mpale to grow groundnuts on a larger-scale basis which they will eventually sell to us upon harvesting,” Ngwira disclosed.
Speaking in an interview one of the farmers who have grown the crop under the In-Grower program at the same farm Florie Chagwira Betha said she joined the initiative upon noting that she will greatly benefit from the arrangement.
According to Chagwira, she has so far cultivated 10 hectares of groundnuts at Pyxus’s Mpale farm under In-Grower initiative which she believes is a good arrangements as it also provides a ready market for the crop.
“This good this with this in-grower programs is that it gives the farmer an opportunity to be given land for free to cultivate the crop, provided with the needed inputs on loan and in addition to that we have a ready market for our groundnuts since Pyxus Agricuture will buy all the groundnuts right here at the farm,” said Chagwira.
Controller of Agriculture Extension and Technical Services in the Ministry of Agriculture Alfred Mwenefumbo commended Pyxus Agricuture for promoting groundnuts farming in the country a development he said would improve the social-economic aspect of the farmers and also at the same time boost the country’s economy through exports of the crop’s products after value addition.
“Let me commend Pyxus for organizing this learning tour for these groundnuts mega farmers of the best agronomic practices of groundnuts cultivation which will eventually improve the crops production across the country hence in the long run boosting our economy,” said Mwenefumbo.
Pyxus has the largest groundnut processing factory outside South Africa at its premises in Kanengo, Lilongwe which has the capacity to process up to 50,000 metric tons of groundnuts per working day.
Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :
