This, according to Director of Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources for Mulanje District Council, Osmond Chapotoka will help them harvest enough food and fight hunger in their homes.

“Mulanje is one of the districts that have been hit hard by hunger as you recall, we experienced cyclones the past three years that have contributed to poor harvests the past three farming seasons,” said Chapotoka.

He said this is the reason they are advising farmers to go into irrigation farming and grow drought resistant crops such as cassava and sweet potato.

Chapotoka spoke on Thursday during the launch of the Integrated Catchment Management.

Chairperson of Mulanje District Council Councilor Thokozani Namoyo called for collaboration of all players in agriculture sector to ensure that the farmers are given required and adequate extension services.

Frank Nkwaila who chairs the District Agriculture Extension Coordinating Committee (DAECC) said field days provide platforms for interaction of the farmers, extension service providers from government, NGOs and agro-dealers.

“We are hopeful that the farmers have learnt some technologies which if adopted will help them fight hunger in their homes,” said Nkwaila.

The Association of Agro-dealers in Mulanje through its chairperson Maxwell Everton Simbota asked farmers to buy farm inputs from registered dealers to avoid purchasing counterfeit inputs from unscrupulous traders.

“We established this association, first to help us the traders be organized and bring sanity on the market at the same time protect farmers from buying fake and expired inputs,” said Simbota.

The Integrated Catchment Management was launched under the theme “Harmonized Implementation of Agricultural Technologies and Diversification of Enterprises: Key to Sustainable Food Security, Climate Change Mitigation and Economic Empowerment to Rural Community.”