The Civil Society Agriculture Network (CISANET), a grouping of local and international organization is calling the leadership of this country start embracing the use of science and technology in a bid to increase their agricultural productions.
The call comes as amid uncertainties for the country’s continual use of old agricultural model of farming such as holes and unskilled labour which for over 51 years after independence an agricultural production is unable to revive the nation’s economic growth.
The lavishing of the country’s economy is attributed to total collapsing of agricultural systems including infrastructures and policies due to unclearly leadership vision especially after attaining the multiparty democracy in 1994.
In an exclusive interview with the Maravi Post, Rex Chapota, CISANET’s Board Chairperson a head of this year annual conference slated for July 29-30, 2015 at Crossroads hotel in the capital Lilongwe, expressed the need for the long-term leadership vision on embracing agriculture using science and technology for the to produce more.
“We believe that advances in science and technology that have taken place worldwide offers Malawi more opportunities and new and better tools needed to promote its agricultural productivity. However these can happen in Malawi if the country creates new or rearranges existing institutional arrangements that will help uptake of these existing technologies to improve productivity.
“Agriculture being the main stay of our economy, our prosperity as a country, will depend on it for many years to come. This therefore calls for significant efforts to modernize our agriculture through the application of science and technology.
“On the other hand, the organisation believes that the first step towards achieving the dream of having a Malawi agriculture that is technologically driven is to have strong political will to change. A willing and inspiring political leadership that provides space for new ideas, space for technocrats to execute policy without much political interference and allowing resources to be effectively and strategically allocated.
“Leaders that do not look at agriculture just as a way of life but encouraging strategic investments that will transform small, subsistent farmers into innovative business minded farmers. This will require a change of priorities, for instance, the substantial investment we have done in the FISP over the years has mainly been geared at putting food on the table of the farming family without much regard to market development and value addition. This we believe could have helped more in poverty reduction.
“The framers of the program, in our view, failed to conceptualize beyond food security and perpetuation of subsistence agriculture production. CISANET calls upon our political leaders to be champions of strategic thinking in development policy planning and implementation”, urges Chapota.
Chapota said the forthcoming annual conference, would look substantively at how innovation systems can be developed and agricultural transformation happens in Malawi.
“The other major milestone of this conference will be the conceptualization of a Malawi agriculture sector vision that CISANET would like to pursue in its policy advocacy work and will ensure that this vision finds its ways into national policies, political party manifestos in the subsequent general elections and sub-sectoral policies dealing with food security and agriculture development in Malawi.
“The network believes that a clear vision and its developmental roadmap for the agriculture sector in Malawi will be crucial moving forward as we review our national and agricultural policies, implementation frameworks and investment plans. We believe that a clear sectorial vision will foster strategic investments for agriculture development.
“CISANET therefore believes that science and technology must be at the center of our programming and investments if any meaningful changes are to be made in our pursuit of value chains development and agricultural industrialization.
“The conference will bring together some internationally renowned experts in the field who will share their ideas on what we need to do, learn from other countries and inform policy and institutional transformation in the agriculture sector in Malawi”, assures Chikopa.
CISANET is a grouping of Civil Society Organisations that was established in 2001 to facilitate the engagement of the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in the agriculture sector with Government over policy issues affecting the sector especially smallholder farmers.
Currently, the network has a membership (including affiliates) of 104 and this membership comprises of NGOs both local and International, Farmer Organisations and interested individuals. It also has a wider range of partners outside its membership who also have an interest in policy issues in agriculture and food security.
