4. If I get a fair price for my rice then ...... my children can go to high school
5.
Editor's Notes
Often carried out with only really basic tools and facilities The building on the left is a toilet block – much more sophisticated than most farmers have! This is possible because the farmer can sell his rice to buy fertilisers, tools and good seed.
This is the rice mill in the north of the country at Karonga. It is in need of substantial updating: the machinery is no longer new and the storage space is limited. The plans this year are to relocate the rice mill and to upgrade it at the same time. Currently the rice is cleaned and rebagged when it arrives in the UK. The aim is to have all the value added in Malawi.
Rice farmers in Malawi treat rice as a cash crop. They grow maize and other crops like cassava for their own food, keep a little of the rice they grow for their own consumption, and sell the rest. Some of the money they will use to buy food. The rest will go for buildings, for farm tools, seeds and fertilizers, maybe a bicycle, a radio, and for school fees. Unless they get a good price for their rice the farmers cannot earn their way out of poverty, improve the standards of their communities, raise the educational standards of the country so that it can gain great economic independence in a very competitive world. One farmer told how he farmed 4 acres: 1 acre for maize, ½ an acre for cassava and 21/2 acres for rice. He harvested 2.4 tonnes of rice from his fields. It ’ s hard to imagine the work involved. The rice is sown in nurseries, then planted out by hand, weeded by hand (ideally 3 times in the growing season for best yields) and then harvested and threshed and dried by hand. Try to imagine 2 acres and planting it with all those tiny plants! It ’ s a heroic kind of achievement.
