RED BAILS OUT YOUTHFUL FARMERS

A youthful couple – Braveson Chithope, 28, and Lezina Keliasi, 25 – from Kumitengo Village, Nyanja Extension Planning Area (EPA) under Senior Chief Kalumbu in Lilongwe has all reasons to walk tall as the 2025/2026 growing season harvesting period approaches.

The couple had always desired to farm beyond subsistence, but low access to inputs coupled with unforgiving long dry spells had always stood in the way over the past growing seasons.

But the young couple is singing a different song in the 2025/2026 growing season as, by 10th February 2026, the Chithopes’ maize crop field had already confirmed a pending bumper yield, with long and healthy maize cobs in their field.

“It’s a one-acre field and as you can see, the yield is very promising,” explained Chithope’s wife, Lezina, during a media tour mid-February 2026, and she went on: “We are expecting not less than 80 bags of maize from this field as the variety that you’re seeing here is a long duration variety, which yields way beyond 100 bags per acre.”

Her husband, Braveson, had expressed similar optimism earlier, mid-January, when the Minister of Agriculture, Roza Mbilizi, had visited the stand as the maize crop was just about to tassel.

Braveson and his wife are among farmers in Lilongwe who benefitted from the Response to Emergency and Disaster (RED), a contingency component within the Sustainable Agricultural Production Programme (SAPP II), designed to respond to emergencies and disasters that may arise in Malawi.

Despite the dry spell that threatened farmers in a number of districts, including Lilongwe and Balaka, most RED beneficiaries have been least affected, with their maize crop promising a bumper yield, raising hopes of prosperity among older and younger farmers like Braveson and his wife, Lezina.

“When we harvest our maize, we plan to reserve a few bags for consumption up to the other harvest and sell the rest,” explained Lezina, adding: “Then we will invest the generated income into a business of our choice and make more gains.”

Elsewhere in Malingunde EPA, the unfolding results of the RED support package have also gotten another youthful beneficiary, Kelvin Lyson, dreaming big.

Lyson is 23, and a Form One dropout with a growing ambition to go back to school and pick up from where he left.

Although his maize was a few days from tasselling in mid-February, the crop stand was an open secret — all being equal, Lyson is likely to fulfill his longtime dream.

“Farming has never been easy for us due to high prices of inputs such as fertiliser and seed,” explained Lyson, who comes from a family of six children, with a single mother.

“But this year farming has been very easy with the RED support and, for the first time in years, we may have enough food for the family’s consumption, and surplus to sell.”

Lyson is optimistic that he will be able to return to school after selling the surplus maize, come harvest time.

The picture is generally the same among most of the RED Component beneficiaries in the six EPAs in Lilongwe: farmers are now seeing themselves bidding farewell to food insecurity, a development that has left both SAPP II implementors and government smiling.

“As a programme we’re happy with the way the farmers have made use of the inputs,” explained SAPP II National Programme Coordinator, Rex Baluwa, in an interview.

“Our expectations are that farmers will have bumper yields, which will contribute to household food security, nutrition security and increased incomes,” he explained.

Similarly, the Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Roza Mbilizi, expressed satisfaction with the prospective outcome of the RED Component given the maize crop outlook in the fields she toured in Lilongwe mid-January.

“I’m very excited that this program has benefitted the farmers from these areas — especially the young farmers,” said Mbilizi after the Chithopes’ maize stand had won her heart.

“It gives me a lot of excitement to see young people getting involved in farming; and I’m also very thankful to International Fund for Agricultural Development for funding the RED Component under SAPP II,” she continued.

According to the minister, the RED Component is in line with President Peter Mutharika’s State of Disaster declaration made in October 2025.