Kofi Annan’s Green revolution to tap water from Lake Malawi

by MUYANGA ZIBA February 12, 2009

Kofi Annan’s Green revolution to tap water from Lake Malawi.

By Muyanga Ziba

African Green Revolution, an organization started by the former Secretary General of the United Nations , will tap water from Lake Malawi to upland where large numbers of arable land will be irrigated, President of Malawi Dr. Bingu Wa Muthark said Thursday at Salima.

Dr. Mutharika ,who could not disclose how much aid the Green Revolution would give said the irrigation project would be the biggest in Malawi once it takes off this year.

The project will cove districts like Karonga, Rumphi Nkhatabay and Mzimba in the Northern Malawi , Nkhotakota, Dowa and Salima in Central Malawi and Mangochi,Ntcheu,Blantyre, Chhikwawa and Nsanje in the Southern Malawi.

“Dr. Kofi Annan has pledged a lot of money to ensure that the project is a success and is coming to see for himself all the arable land that will be irrigated,” he said.

Financial analysts have predicted the total cost of the project should be more than 200 million American dollars

He said water from irrigation would mean Farmers would be harvesting their crops more than twice in each year saying Malawi will have the capacity to feed other nations where there would be hunger.

Water analysts from the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Development have predicted that the project would create more than one thousand jobs thereby contributing to the economic development of the country.

They say the economic prosperity would also trickle down to neighouring countries such as Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania.

The African Green Revolution that supports the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halve the number of hungry and malnourished people in Africa by 2015.

At the heart of the Green Revolution is the idea that, using existing science and technology, agriculture can become the engine for Africa's economic growth.

Annam says the revolution would see proven techniques in small-scale irrigation and water harvesting scaled up to provide more crop-per-drop.

It would also see improved food crops, developed through publicly funded research focused specifically on Africa.

One third of land in Malawi is covered by Lake Malawi. However, Malawi has been facing acute food shortages because of lack of resurces to irrigate water upland.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation(FAO) ‘s Jacques Diouf said in December Malawi has the potential to feed many countries in Africa if it can use modern Irrigation methods properly of taking water from Lake Malawi to upland areas .

Diouf lamented that only 2% of the land is used for irrigation saying Malawi should set a goal to ensure that at least 20% of the land is being irrigated.