Members of the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Science and Technology have expressed satisfaction with initiatives community members in Traditional Authority Kampingo Sibande in Mzimba have undertaken to avert food insecurity in the area.
Mzimba is one of the districts, which faces food insecurity due to bad rains it received in the 2022-2023 agricultural year.
Kasangazi Irrigation Scheme president Chidongo Chirwa narrating their challenges to lawmakers
This has prompted community members to invest in large scale irrigation farming to avert food crisis.
The initiative has delighted members of Parliament (MPs) sitting on the Committee on Education, Science and Technology who visited the farmers on Wednesday.
The National Commission for Science and Technology (NCST) organized the tour to enable the MPs to interact with innovators it is working with in its efforts to improve the social and economic livelihoods of Malawians through science and technology.
Irrigated maize field in Group Village Head Bondera in Mzimba
Mulanje Southwest lawmaker and member of the committee, Dr. George Chaponda, said in light of the bad weather the country is experiencing annually, irrigation farming is way out of hunger.
Chaponda therefore urged the farmers to triple their efforts so that they can sell the extra harvest to others.
But president of Kasangazi Irrigation Scheme, Chidongo Chirwa, lamented lack of financial and material resources to expand the scheme.
Chirwa said they are currently utilizing less than 50 percent of the scheme.
“We appeal to the committee to help us mobilize resources to enable us to expand the scheme,” he said.
