Call for Shire Valley residence to venture into commercial agriculture resurfaces

Call for Shire Valley residence to venture into commercial agriculture resurfaces at Mgumano wa Asena na Amang’anja

Board Chairperson for Mgumano wa Asena na Amang’anja, Dr. Anthony Malunga has asked people in the Shire Valley districts of Nsanje and Chikwawa to venture into commercial farming by growing native crops and keeping more animals if they are to be financially independent.

Dr. Malunga was speaking, over the weekend at Nyambadwe Primary School ground in Blantyre where the grouping gathered and displayed some cultural practices.

He said despite the looming hunger which has hit hard many parts of the country, people of Shire Valley have potential of growing various crops and rearing animals as their land is suitable for agricultural activities thereby feeding the nation.

“We need to have more farm produce including crops and animals which would be sold across Malawi inline with the national development blue print set by the National Planning Commission dubbed Malawi 2063 which aims at transforming agriculture from subsistence to commercial and in the long run making our lives better,” said Dr Malunga

Representing 21 royal families of the twin districts, Lawrence Malemia from the family of Senior Chief Malemia advised people from the Shire Valley belt to help one another in times of need like disasters saying this can help to strengthen the tribe’s unity among themselves.

Said Malemia: “Let’s stop wrong thinking that other individuals or organizations will just come to support us. We have capacity to help one another before others come in. Let me in a special way thank Nsanje and Chikwawa Socio–Economic Development Trust (NECK) grouping for their great work especially when the disasters happened. They reached out to many people besides acquiring more health equipment which they later distributed to some health facilities within the two districts.

“We should also preserve and observe our culture by promoting speaking sena language, eating food like water lilly (nyika), alligator meat (mphenembe) and food from cereals like sorghum, millet, maize, and different varieties of beans,” he said.

On his part, Regional Chairperson for the grouping responsible for the south, Jayne Ngina Chikwana said they plan to have events of that nature annually so that people from the twin districts could meet and share more of their culture as one way of good upbringing of their children.

The event was spiced up with various traditional dances like maseseto, chikuzire, utse and ulimba also popularly known as valimba and other different foods from the region.