By Aliko Munde

Chitipa, January 15, Mana: Chitipa District Council has appealed to farmers under Mafinga and Marko Irrigation schemes in Senior Chiefs Mwenewenya and Mwabulambya respectively to utilize the   facilities in order to help fight food insecurity in the district.

Chitipa District Council Director of Planning and Development (DPD), Smith Mnenula made the call on Wednesday after touring the two irrigation schemes to appreciate what farmers are doing.

Mnenula observed that the two schemes are big but were being underutilized.

“Mafinga irrigation scheme has a hectarage of 131 but only 49.5 hectares is being utilised while Marko irrigation scheme is 98 hectares big with only 38.8 hectares under utilisation which is very little.

“To achieve the 10-year Malawi Implementation Plan under Malawi 2063, we need to start utilising these capital investments so that we are food secure and have income at household level,” Mnenula said.

He challenged frontline workers in the two senior chiefs to mobilise farmers and sensitise them on the importance of irrigation farming.

“We want to make sure that this season more farmers start utilising the irrigation schemes. There is also a need for farmers to increase their farming area so that they have food at home and sell the surplus,” he said.

Mafinga Water Users Association secretary, Alice Mbale assured the council that the association will mobilize farmers to ensure that they start irrigation farming in the next irrigation season.

"We will ensure that we sensitise the farmers on the need to utilise the facilities to help avert hunger in the district," she said.

Marko Irrigation Scheme Secretary, Abdala Milanzi said he is hopeful that more farmers will start irrigation farming to utilise the idle scheme land.

“Most farmers were hesitant to do irrigation farming but after seeing the benefits coming from the scheme, many have registered to join the farming this season,” Milanzi said.

The Mafinga and Marko Irrigation schemes were constructed by Programme for Rural Irrigation Development (PRIDE) project with funding from International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), The Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) and the Malawi Government.