By Wanangwa Tembo
Chairperson for the Agriculture Service Committee at Kasungu District Council, Bryson Phiri has bemoaned the rigidity amongst some farming communities to adopt new farming approaches and technologies despite many pieces of training offered by agricultural experts.
Banda says research results that could help to improve yields have not been fully adopted and utilized despite that they have been demonstrated to farmers on their reliability and efficacy.
He was speaking on Wednesday during a crop field day organised by students from China Agricultural University at Lisasadzi Rural Training College in Kasungu District.
“Our extension workers do their best to demonstrate to farmers how best they can approach farming nowadays by emphasizing the adoption of new technologies amidst climate change.
“But it is concerning that some farmers do not see the need to change. They are stuck with the traditional ways of doing things which have always failed to transform their lives,” Phiri said.He said farming is a combination of science and business, warning that ignoring any of the two components would be disastrous to farmers, no matter how hard they work in their gardens.
“We are discouraging the business-as-usual approach to farming. We must adjust to the changing realities to benefit from our investments and labour in the gardens,” he said.
As part of their studies, the students organised the field day to showcase their crop density and intercropping field trials under the science and technology backyard strategy introduced by their university in which farmers and researchers work together seeking means to address agricultural challenges including low yields.
One of the students, Sylvester Chalowa Panyani, emphasised the importance of agricultural research in achieving security at household levels.
“We have to learn from countries that are doing well in agriculture regarding maximising yield and China is one of those countries.
“But before we implement what we learn from there, we need to experiment with those approaches to see which ones can work in the Malawian context,” he said.
Programmes manager for Kasungu Agricultural Development Division, Yusuf Shaibu asked the students to share the results of their research with agricultural authorities so that they are spread down to farmers.
He said field days are important platforms through which farmers learn by observing the results of new approaches and technologies so that they apply them in their homesteads.
