By Wanangwa Tembo

Kasungu, October 7, Mana: Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Simplex Chithyola has commended Oxfam for promoting women's participation in agriculture and ensuring access to profitable markets for their produce.

Chithyola was speaking at Chaima in Kasungu District during activities that Oxfam and its partners organized to raise awareness of women's rights to agriculture.

The activities were part of the project called ‘Enhancing access to profitable and inclusive agriculture markets for smallholder farmers in Kasungu District’ being implemented by Circle for Integrated Community Development (CICOD) and the Catholic Development Commission in Malawi (CADECOM) with funding from the Flanders Government through Oxfam.

Said the minister: “I am impressed that this project has some focus on establishing market linkages to ensure that our farmers have access to profitable markets which is key to ensuring that they benefit from their work.

“As government, we are responsible for looking for off-takers that can provide profitable and inclusive markets. We will do everything to ensure they are good markets for our farmers.”

He encouraged farmers to get into cooperatives to increase their bargaining power for better prices of their produce.

“If you make cooperatives, you are better placed to bargain for good prices from off-takers and make more profits.

“We commend Oxfam for promoting this kind of approach to agriculture and we are aware of the huge impact this project has had on our farming households,” he said.

Gender Coordinator at Oxfam, Lindiwe Jere said there is a need to raise awareness of women’s rights by focusing on gender-based violence, child labour and social norms that affect women’s participation in agricultural production and access to profitable and inclusive markets.

“Apart from enhancing the capacity of smallholder farmers, particularly women and youths, to produce marketable and profitable agriculture commodities, we are also promoting gender transformative approaches to enhance equal participation.

“We are conducting campaigns to end violence against women and the use of child labour in the target extension and planning areas [EPAs],” she said.

Through the project, which is being implemented in Santhe, Chamama, Mtunthama and Chulu EPAs, farmers have been trained on new agriculture approaches, and marketing and have been given warehouses.