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Intercepting Goals of Food Security

Every harvest season, the country is aware of abnormalities with maize. From farmers to traders, there is a wide range of people involved. We may not be able to let it go because the whole problem reflects the importance of maize, Malawi’s main food crop.

As a result, we are obligated to appeal to relevant authorities and stakeholders to ensure that maize in the gardens or being harvested is properly safeguarded, harvested, handled, and stored without being manipulated by unscrupulous traders.

Food security includes taking precautions to protect the dominant food crop, maize, during the impending harvest. The trader’s nefarious involvement with the main food crop, directly in the gardens before it is harvested, is largely overlooked.

Though it is not illegal to trade maize, as it is with other products, most traders disregard the humanitarian component. Traders who hoard maize after purchasing it from local farmers, for example, are interfering with food security goals.

To guarantee enough inventories, the authorities should always be ready to buy maize from local farmers at the best possible prices. The government must continue to actively educate local farmers, urging them not to sell the valuable commodity out of desperation.

In trading, Islam asks for sanity. It is not desirable for traders to stockpile commodities in order to sell them at high prices when consumers are in desperate need. It is, nevertheless, permissible to retain things in abundance in order to make them available when they are rare.

Malawi cannot overlook the noble instruction of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him), “What an evil person who withholds! If God Almighty causes the prices to drop, he would be saddened, and if He causes them to climb, he would be excited.”  We encourage traders to trade responsibly, not to hoard, and to be satisfied when prices are stable.

We must constantly protect our staple food crop from opportunistic traders who cross borders illegally. Beyond having bumper crop seasons, food security is essential. Harvest seasons may occasionally provide the necessary quantities, but use is the determining factor in being sustainable.

We must redouble our efforts in agriculture, particularly in improving the most dependent food crop, as well as other crops. As cover crops, we cannot overlook the necessity of multicopying and intercropping.