By Pemphero Malimba:
Tobacco farmers in Dowa and Ntchisi districts have lamented lack of extension services by extension workers under the Ministry of Agriculture.
The farmers revealed this when Deputy Minister of Agriculture Benedicto Chambo inspected tobacco farms in the two districts.
Chambo was in the company of Ministry of Agriculture and Tobacco Commission (TC) officials.
One of the farmers in Traditional Authority Kalumo, Ntchisi District, Patrick Jeremiah, said agriculture extension officers under the Ministry of Agriculture were not visiting them in their farms.
“We lack extension services from the agriculture extension officers because they do not visit us. We do not know why they do this but this is impacting us negatively,” Jeremiah said.
He observed that agriculture extension workers were crucial to the tobacco industry.
Another farmer from the area of Traditional Authority Mponela, Dowa, David Dymon, said it was difficult to get hold of agriculture extension workers under the ministry.
“There is a very big problem with the issue of agriculture extension workers. None has come to my farm. When we contacted them last growing season, they promised to come but didn’t,” Dymon said.
He said agriculture extension officers help to ensure that farmers follow proper agricultural practices.
Chambo said the problem was coming in due to lack of collaboration between agriculture extension workers that were working for tobacco firms and those that were under his ministry.
“Our partners, especially tobacco companies, have their own field assistants but are not collaborating with our officers. This is a very big problem, one we need to sort out. We, as government, have to engage our partners so that our extension workers and their extension workers should work and move together in offering services to farmers,” he said.
TC acting Chief Executive Officer Evans Chilumpha said the commission was expecting at least 140 million kilogrammes of tobacco to be produced this year.
“We anticipated the country to produce 160 million kg (kilogrammes) but with the drought, we expect that there is going to be reduced production to, maybe, around 140 to 150 million kilogrammes this year.
“But you can see that this is even higher than what we produced last year, which was 133 million kilogrammes, because there is an increase in hectares by the growers and also there are new entrants in the farming of tobacco this year,” Chilumpha said.
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