By Denis Mzembe
LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-For most smallholder farmers in Malawi inadequate training and modern faming skills have been for a long time been some of the factors standing in their way towards prosperity.
The challenges have also been compounded by lack of established and stronger farmer cooperatives and organizations.
But the inception of the Agricultural Commercialization (Agcom) project has rekindled hope for a brighter future for most smallholder farmers.
Agcom is a government of Malawi initiative that seeks to transform smallholder agriculture from subsistence to a commercial market oriented sector says National Programme Coordinator, Ted Nankhumwa.
As one of its major mandates, Agcom 2 project promotes agricultural productivity and commercialization for small and medium scale farmers and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by strengthening productive alliances between farmer producer organisations and off takers through enhancement of market infrastructure.
It supports primary production of farm commodities, aggregation and marketing on local and export markets of farm produce processing and value addition through farmer producer organizations and SMEs.
Agcom, Nankhumwa says, helps foster productive alliances between farmer cooperatives and buyers to enhance productivity and improve access to markets and provision of grants for infrastructure and equipment.
The organisation is working in the districts of Ntcheu, Zomba and Blantyre to help enhance farmers’ business operations to help in increase income at household level.
The National Program Co-ordinator says the project targets 850 farmer organisations and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
Currently, he says, the organisation is supporting 428 farmer producer organisation’s and 33 SMEs.
He says the organisation has so far disbursed matching grants based on bankable approved business plans with genuine market opportunities and said he was delighted that the compliance rate was at between 90 and 95 percent.
As a follow up mechanism to ensure compliance, Nankhumwa says the organisation has technical implementation support consultants who function as frontline extension staff who coordinate with various farmer producers to ensure that quality goods and services are provided to the beneficiaries.
On his part, Henry Chimpesa, a Co-operative Development Officer in the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism speaking during a cooperative training and education event recently, said it was imperative that famers register in cooperatives to help enhance their agricultural activities.
He said registering a cooperative would give the farmers legal capacity to enter into agreements that are binding with both buyers and suppliers of different materials and source of labour.
Chimpesa added: “On the other hand, by being in a cooperative the farmers would be taught how to run successful businesses because a cooperative is a business entity and by its nature it has to do business for its farmers to be able to meet their social and economic needs.”
Among another areas that were covered during the cooperative’s member training and education session were the general set up of cooperative, leadership, members’ rights and responsibilities and cooperative laws.
He said capacity building trainings would help farmers set up cooperatives that are going to give them the mandate to do businesses as well as own assets in cooperatives name adding that this would help protect their assets from others who may have some thoughts of interfering with what they are doing.
“We expect to see these milk bulking groups enhance their milk production and also be able to explore other ways of how they can boost their businesses,” he said.
He added: “If farmers can join cooperatives, we have high expectations that they would be able to run commercial farming businesses that would ably compete at the national and international market.”
Chimwemwe Sagona, a member of Zomba based Stall Feeding Cooperative situated at Mpamba Village in Traditional Authority Malemia in Zomba recalls that her group started in 2019 with 32 members comprising 17 women and 15 men.
“We had initially started it as a village bank and we later decided that the business must grow so we went to Agcom to seek for financial support to start breeding beef cattle and submitted 7a concept and business plan worth K224 Million,” she explains.
Sagona says following the concept and business plan, they had received a tranche of K104 Million which was released in August 2025 after signing the grant agreement in April the same year.
She says with capacity building training from Agcom, the cooperative has been able to enhance their business.
“The training has helped shape us to become more proactive to successfully run a viable cooperative. Even when the project phases out we will be able to sustain our cooperative with ease,” she says.
Among other things, she says members have been trained on how they can effectively utelize cattle manure in their other farming activities.
Besides building capacity of smallholder farmers, Agcom is also helping strengthen agricultural resilience by enabling farmers adopt climate smart agriculture and also supplying livestock to them.
On her part, Chairperson of Zonona Piggery Cooperative, Favour Maseko,6 recalls that their group nearly folded up if it were not for Agcom’s intervention.
“Lack of capital nearly forced our group members to quit. When Agcom gave us the funds we had requested we were very excited because we just wanted to quit because we did not have the funds ourselves to carry on.
She observes that with Agcom’s funds, their business journey has been running smoothly.
Maseko further says courtesy of Agcom, their group now boasts of two solar powered water tanks to assist them with clean water for their piggery business.
A visibly happy Maseko explains: “It has been an amazing journey. It is something that I never expected and go through it all.
“We really appreciate the grant that Agcom extended to us. It also made it possible that we have water at the farm using solar energy as you know pigs require a lot of water. We are determined to succeed in our farming.”
Another beneficiary of Agcom’s interventions is Mwalawolemba Bulking group of Chiwoko in Traditional Authority Chimaliro in Thyolo District which had initially started as a small group in 2012 supported by Sun Crest in Blantyre.
The group’s Chairperson, Emmanuel Vimbani, says the group had eventually approached Agcom for K282 million funding to help support its dairy farming activities.
“We were provided a grant to cater for 130 farmers in the group where members were able to deliver milk on daily basis to be paid at the end of every month,” he says.
He explains that with the first tranche of K160 million, the farmers were able to purchase 65 dairy cattle and expand their cattle kraal.
“We will purchase 65 more dairy cattle in the second tranche. This will transform our lives because the volumes of milk will significantly be increased and our earnings too,” he adds.
Currently, Agcom is supporting at least 88,400 beneficiaries in various farming activities.
Some of Agcom cooperating partners both locally and internationally include the Ministry of Agriculture, IBTT, local banks, Ministry of Finance, MAICC, CCARDESA and The world Bank.
