Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Minister, Kondwani Nankhumwa, has said he is personally committed to ensuring that Malawian smallholder tea farmers earn better prices than what they are currently getting from tea companies. “I am deeply concerned with the current price, which is K121.30 per kilogram. This price is exploitive, abusive and utterly unfair,” said […]
Stories abound that when a baby cried in Thyolo, the mother gave it a banana before breastfeeding it. That is how Thyolo natives proudly but jokingly talked big of the abundance of what they valued most – bananas. Until the evergreen canopy surrounding homes turned yellow, wilted and then completely dried then the mothers learnt […]
A Lilongwe-based upcoming social enterprise, Hortnet is revolutionalizing a more inclusive and sustainable horticulture value chain in Malawi mainly in its supply chain. Speaking on the sidelines of inspecting the first Tissue Culture Laboratory as one way of resuscitating the banana industry in country, Hortnet Managing Director Frankie Washoni said they intend to operate its […]
Karonga Agriculture Development Division (ADD) deputy programme manager Enock Mzembe has advised farmers in Chitipa against using banana suckers from other districts to prevent banana bunchy top disease. Mzembe said this on Wednesday at Ibanda in Chitipa where the ADD launched its three-step campaign. The campaign, dubbed the tripartite launch, includes compost manure making, irrigation […]
Malawi is on the course of revamping its banana sector hugely devastated by Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD) caused by the Banana Bunchy Top Virus (BBTV) which has completely destroyed the crop across the country. Government through the Ministry of Irrigation and the Department of Agriculture Research Services is currently distributing disease-free banana plantlets imported […]
The Civil Society Agriculture Network (Cisanet) has blamed the Malawi Government of lacking interest to deal with Banana Bunchy Top Disease, a disease which is wiping out banana plants in the country. The disease which has already wiped out about 60 percent of the crop, according to experts, is also threatening livelihoods of most farmers […]
Former Principal Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security Dr. Andrew Daudi is the one that allowed the banana disease Bunchy Top to spread in the country because he feared the country’s leadership then would not like the news. This has been revealed by two senior officials from the Ministry of Agriculture after […]