Effective policies are the best beginnings for driving effective programs that
deliver to the people. The best policies are those that take a realistic view of
our context, needs, priorities and future challenges.
Our reality as a country is that it is only now that we are diversifying and
expanding our economy. The fact however is that agriculture remains the
anchor of our economy. It is the main support of our life. Given this importance,
agriculture deserves to be driven by best policies.
However, for many years, our agriculture sector has been guided by subsectoral policies that are sometimes out-dated and incompatible with
each other. These challenges have significantly limited the efficacy of past
programs. This necessitated the need for realignment and updating of subsectoral policies to provide clear guidance and achievement of objectives.
Government has now developed the National Agriculture Policy (NAP) in
order to provide clear and comprehensive policy guidance in agriculture.
This policy framework addresses current challenges and attends to future
challenges facing the sector. The specific objective of the NAP is to guide
Malawi to achieve transformation of the agriculture sector. More specifically,
this policy guides us towards increasing production, productivity, and real
farm incomes.
This policy means we can now move forward as a country with a clear direction
in agriculture. We have defined clear goals and objectives for us to pursue.