A certified warehouses built with assistance from the Flanders Government, World Food Programme (WFP) and Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE), was handed over to six smallholder farmer organisations.

The handover ceremony was led by deputy director of value addition of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Kamia Sulumba, who said the warehouse was means of the government’s efforts towards solving the challenges farmers face in terms of storage of crops.

The warehouse is worth €3 million euro (about K2.5 billion), and the smallholder farmers were urged to look after the warehouse and take care of it, as WFP deputy country director Patrizia Papinutti said the United Nations agency wants to see increased commitment by government to procure directly from farmer organisations.

The warehouse was launched in Lilongwe, where the smallholder farmers were also given money depending on how active they were in the warehouse receipt system, in which about K33 million was shared among the smallholders.