The farmers presented the petition on Friday 11 March, 2022. During the Presentation of the Petition to the Deputy Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Mr. Frighton Njolomole, President for the Farmers Union of Malawi lamented proliferation of fake seed on the market where he attributed this to the prevailing less punitive archaic laws.
“As farmers, we wonder why the government is taking longer than necessary to have this important legislation in place. Seed is a very critical input hence the need to have a legislative framework that should bring sanity in the production, registration, distribution and selling of seeds in the countryâ€, Njolomole said.
The farmers presented the petition under the banner of Farmers Union of Malawi, National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi, Civil Society Agricultural Network.
Malawi is one of the countries that are grappling with low crop yields and experts believe that proliferation of fake seeds is one of the key contributing factors.
Enactment of the Seed Bill will therefore be a game changer..