Speaking to Zodiak Online on Thursday in Phalombe, Deputy Program Manager for Blantyre Agriculture Development Division (BLADD), Annily Msukwa, said 56, 000 hectares were affected in the 2020/2021 farming season and there is need to intensify winter cropping to cushion the shocks.

Msukwa said during the 2020/2021 farming season, all the seven districts under the Division were hit by dry spell.

“Affected farmers require maize seeds and other crops so that they can venture into winter cropping in their respective area,” said Msukwa.

She made the remarks in Phalombe when Peacock Enterprise Seeds donated 13,000 metric tons of hybrid maize seeds to BLADD worth twenty million eight hundred thousand Kwacha which is expected to be distributed to the affected farmers.

Peacock Enterprise Seeds Company Director of Finance and Administration Manager, Charles Kaunda, said the donation has come after noticing that some farmers will be food insecure following the dry spell that hit the division.

“As a company, we are also feeling the pinch of dry spell; hence, the donation,” said Kaunda.

One of the farmers whose crops were affected by the dry spell, Gertrude Salima, said the donation has come at a right time and she is optimistic that through winter cropping she will be food secure.