Sustaining food systems and value chains in Ntcheu

To sustain food systems and value chains, this reform area calls for improved agricultural productivity and increase the variety of food available at household and community levels through the promotion of climate smart agriculture in drought prone areas which will ultimately foster dietary diversification and promote small scale processing plants for value addition. Nonetheless, production and productivity of the sector has remained below the country’s potential and is insufficient to match the increasing demand from domestic and export markets. This calls for intensive and transformative approaches to increase the scale of agriculture output on the same small pieces of household land holding sizes. In addition, increasing weather shocks call for more resilient approaches to agriculture production. Furthermore, challenges in agricultural marketing and limited investments in value addition have significantly contributed to limited growth and in some cases significant loss of some viable and very profitable agriculture value chains such as sweet potatoes, tomatoes, Irish potatoes, onions, beans, vegetables, paprika and some other legumes.