By Damiano Thengo

Nkhotakota, September 30, Mana:  Nkhotakota District Agricultural Office has appealed to farmers in the district to add value to their farm produce to attract buyers from both local and international markets to make profits.

District Principal Agricultural Officer for Nkhotakota, Prince Shaibu said this during the 5th Agriculture Fair held at the District Fisheries Office in the district over the weekend. He said the fair was aimed at linking farmers and agricultural cooperatives with service providers and potential buyers.

Shaibu revealed that farmers in the district need to seriously consider adding value to their farm produce which will eventually lead to improved performance across the entire agricultural value chain and benefit smallholder farmers.

"We have seen that as a district we are not doing much value addition in most of the value chain, so we plan to train mass agricultural cooperatives to engage in value addition seriously as a matter of urgency,” said Shaibu.

Nkhotakota district council chairperson, Charles Chimzukuzuku praised the Agriculture Office for organizing the activity which would encourage farmers to share knowledge and practice modern ways of farming. He asked people in the district to venture into farming to assist in producing enough food to feed the district and the whole country.

Chimzukuzuku however encouraged smallholder farmers to get loans from government financial institutions like the National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF) to have enough capital that can help boost their farming business activities.

"We are far behind in value addition, one thing that is a challenge is lack of economic empowerment, that's why I have encouraged all farmers to visit our district offices to understand how they can access loans from government financial institutions like NEEF," said Chimzukuzuku.

This year's Agriculture Fair was conducted under the theme ‘Agriculture Productivity Diversification and Value addition in the face of adverse climate conditions’.