Civil Society Agriculture Network (Cisanet) says it believes the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement needs to be popularised among various stakeholders in order to have a meaningful impact to the country’s economic growth.

Cisanet chief executive officer (CEO) Pamela Kuwali made the observation on Tuesday in Lilongwe at Sunbird Capital during a media breakfast gathering ahead of a day-long National Policy Conference themed ‘AfCFTA: Opportunities and Challenges for Agriculture in Malawi’.

Kuwali: We have the agreement up and running

She noted that despite the country signing the AfCFTA agreement, most stakeholders are not aware of its contents, arguing that for Malawi to move forward there was need to intensify awareness of the same.

“We have the agreement up and running but not many stakeholders are aware of the opportunities and challenges that are contained in it. We need to bring those things out and come up with concrete strategies to improve our agriculture sector,” she said.

Kuwali added that time has come for the agriculture sector to be linked with trade, saying the country’s economy has always been agro-based.

The CEO outlined a strategy for prioritising targeted public and private sector investment that facilitates scale production within key value chains to effectively harness the opportunity.

She expressed concern that policies are lacking proper linkages, adding that there is weak coordination and collaboration in enhancing them.

Kuwali added that government, farmers, private sector and CSOs have a role to play in ensuring that the agreement works to the betterment of the country’s economy.

She said the annual policy conference was supposed to be held in November 2021 and it will be held on February 17 2022.

Cisanet Access to Profitable Markets Thematic Group chairperson Driana Lwanda bemoaned lack of structured markets for most crops in the country as one of the biggest challenges farmers were facing.

She said most farmers are not gaining from the sales of their crops because they have to sell them on their own.

Lwanda said farmers tend to benefit more if they sell their crops as cooperatives.

Mwapata Investment chief executive officer William Chanza said the conference would provide an opportunity for further discussion among various stakeholders on how to utilise the AfCFTA agreement in place. He said there is need to develop possible pathways towards harnessing the AfCFTA as an opportunity to accelerate agriculture growth and transformation in line with Malawi 2063.

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