Malawi expected to plant more maize

Farmers in Malawi are excepting to plant more maize this year after it as  was announced by the President of Malawi Dr. Bingu Wa Mutharika that the price of maize will be reduced from K950.00(approximately seven American dollars) to K900(approximately 6 American dollars)

Malawi this year harvested 3,146,398  million metric tonnes of maize against a requirement of   2 million metric tonnes.

Most farmers will plant maize after their surplus maize this year has been exported to Zimbabwe as well as Swaziland.

Some of the maize has also been sold illegally by farmers in Tanzania .

The Ministry of Agriculture said an increase in  tonnage of subsidised fertilizer by thousands of smallholder farmers had led to an increase for maize.

Malawi met its food needs for the first time in 2006 after harvesting 2.2 million tonnes of maize, which is the staple food.. This was after a series of poor harvests.

The Malawi Government introduced a coupon system in  2006 giving small scale farmers access to buy fertilizer at half the commercial price.

Up to five million people were in need of food aid in 2005 following drought and the government spent over $100 million to import more than 400,000 tons of food to avert hunger, according to Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

Nearly 12 million people in Zimbabwe and Malawi were in need of food emergency in 2005, according to a report published by Food and Agricultural Organisation(FAO) in 2005.

Most farmers in 2006/2007 season did not plant tobacco  because of poor prices on the tobacco market in 2006

 Malawi exports tobacco more  than any crop