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MoAIWD, SAPP II sign MoU with MBS to facilitate agro-products certification
The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MoAIWD), in conjunction with the Sustainable Agricultural Production Programme (SAPP II), Friday signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) to ensure that farmer organizations and cooperatives under SAPP II produce quality and certified products for the market. The signing of the MoU took place at the Ministry’s Headquarters at Capital Hill in Lilongwe in presence of MBS Director General, Symon Mandala; MoAIWD Principal Secretary (Admin.) Ben Nkasala; and SAPP II National Project Coordinator, Rex Baluwa. Nkasala hailed the partnership, saying it will contribute towards improving product quality, enhancing market access, increasing consumer confidence and, ultimately, improving incomes and livelihoods of farmers under the SAPP II project. He said through the SAPP II project the ministry is mobilizing farmers into cooperatives and farmer organizations for them to embark on massive agro- processing and value addition for local and international market. “Meaningful market participation cannot be achieved without robust compliance with established standards and certification systems: This is the critical gap that our partnership with the Malawi Bureau of Standards will address,” explained Nkasala. He added: “By bridging production, quality assurance, and market requirements, we are embedding sustainability and compliance at the heart of SAPP II’s results framework.” On the other hand, MBS Director General, Symon Mandala, commended the MoAIWD and SAPP II for considering MBS as a strategic partner, saying the collaboration will empower farmer organizations to access the market. Mandala said following the Agreement, the Bureau will provide training and technical guidance on national and international standards; quality assurance training; product certification service; and increased awareness of standards compliance as a market entry tool. “It’s very important that they’ve decided to involve us right at the early stage because, quite often, products are produced elsewhere only for the companies to involve us at the final stage for the Bureau’s quality mark and when we tell them the required procedure, they label the Bureau a stumbling block,” said Mandala. He further appealed to MoAIWD and SAPP II to ensure that there’s continued coordination; effective communication; and timely resource allocation and release for the collaboration to be successful. SAPP II is being implemented with support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and it is promoting agricultural commercialization, productivity and resilience among smallholder farmers in targeted districts of Balaka, Lilongwe, Dowa and Mzimba. The core priority of SAPP II is to enable farmer organisations to participate effectively in structured, competitive, and profitable markets. According to the Project’s National Coordinator, Rex Baluwa, over 230 farmer organisations have been profiled under the SAPP II and they will soon receive matching grants for value addition and agro-processing initiatives. “These farm organizations need our support and I’m happy that as we’ll be starting to do capacity building with them, we will start together with MBS so that the farmers know exactly what to do to meet the required standards,” said Baluwa.
Read MoreRED Complements Government’s Food Security Efforts
Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Rosa Mbilizi, recently expressed gratitude for the role that the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is playing in supporting the government’s Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) to reach more farmers. The minister made these remarks at Kumitengo Village, under Senior Chief Kalumbu in Lilongwe District, when she toured farmers benefiting from the Response to Emergencies and Disasters (RED) project under the Sustainable Agriculture Production Programme (SAPP II). “I would like to thank IFAD for supporting us with US$3 million in this programme so that we can reach more farmers. My expectation as Minister of Agriculture, and that of the President of Malawi, Arthur Peter Mutharika, is that there should be no hunger in Malawi, and that farmers must be motivated to work hard in order to achieve our goal of food security in the country,” she said. During the visit, the minister toured the Kalumbu FISP market, where she interacted with market officials and farmers to understand their experiences with the farm input redemption process, as well as the challenges they were facing. She later inspected maize fields belonging to some of the beneficiaries in order to appreciate how the farm inputs under the programme were being utilized. Mbilizi said she was pleased that, by mid-January 2026, the redemption rate of fertiliser and certified seed under the RED component had reached 85 percent. “We expect maize prices to continue going down. Around the same time last year, a 50-kilogramme bag of maize was selling at about K110,000, but now the same bag is selling at around K50,000. By the time we complete FISP in mid-March, we will have more maize in the country, and that should continue to drive maize prices down,” she said. According to SAPP II National Coordinator, Rex Baluwa, the RED component was deliberately incorporated into SAPP II to respond to emergencies and disasters affecting food security. “When the President declared that there was a food crisis in the country, as a project we approached our financiers, IFAD, and they agreed to the proposal to help the government support farmers so that they could easily access farm inputs for this season,” he said. According to Baluwa, SAPP II procured 2,200 metric tonnes of NPK and Urea fertilisers, as well as 22,000 five-kilogramme maize seed packs through the RED component. “Through this programme, we are supporting 22,000 farmers: 17,950 beneficiaries in Lilongwe District and 4,050 beneficiaries in Balaka District. The fertiliser was redeemed at the subsidized price of K10,000 for NPK and K10,000 for Urea, while the 5kg certified maize seed was free for all beneficiaries,” he added. Baluwa further noted that the RED component has been highly successful in both districts, achieving a redemption rate of 100 percent.
Read MoreIFAD Supervision Mission
IFAD Supervision Mission for the programme is scheduled to take place from 22 June-3 July. The objective of the Mission is to track the project’s implementation progress for the 2025/26 implementation year.
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