Surrounded by children in the village of Chikasauka 50kms north of Lilongwe, Kamzawa, 64, tells us that he would like to be selected for the Integrated Production System – known universally as the “IPS” – to boost his tobacco farming. Using fertiliser and seed supplied by the local tobacco trading houses, and the expertise of their “leaf technicians” criss-crossing the country on their 125cc Chinese-made motorbikes, this would raise both the yield and quality of his burley leaf, and hence his income.
But his immediate problem is that he has not been selected as part of the programme. The world's tobacco market is just too small, and there are too many tobacco farmers in Malawi to accommodate everyone in the IPS. His wider problem is that government intervention in the maize market means he cannot get a commercial price for his crop and is thus condemned to a life of hard work and poverty.
Michael, and many like him, are getting smoked because Malawi is not getting its agricultural act together. Read More>
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