Spice Culture First

Black Panther · Senior Member

Spice Culture First

kesso · Senior Member

Good idea. Spices as a cash crop. Firstly, like you said MW lacks the culture of spices. TZ has a lot of Arab influence hence the spicy food. Plus the coast made it easy to trasport them overseas.

If MW was to introduce this culture, it would be up to the private sector to take the responsibity; of course with government incentives and encouragements. It will take a long time to foster this. For starter farmers in MW are not known for their venturesomeness. Thats where the govt steps in with the investment. Spices require a lot of attention and the cycles might clash with the yearly maize production, so food production might suffer as a consequence. Well, I don't really know much about agiculture, but diversification would be hard to implement in the begining without the government having some sort of starter programme. Maybe like having a controlled experimental, phase and gradually expand it if it works.

A change of culture is essential too like you say. Promoting cooking recipes etc. MW cooking is bland in comparison to most of Africa. It IS time to change that...Perhaps.

sepusepu · Senior Member

Malawi has a higher percentage of uneducated people who tend to have problems in adapting to change. It will take living example in the village for the people to be motivated to start growing paprika. The other problem is that there is a great difference between domestic farming and comercial farming. How effective are the resources being utilized.

Colleges like Bunda should be put to full use. Most people that graduate are those that are looking forward to getting a job get married and live on. We need people that will go out of college with ideas and become employers rather than be employees.

sepu sepu

sexmadsista · Veteran Member

is wanking part of the mwian culture?

Paudah_Paf · Member

A grower's association would be a good start, evenly spread out across the different regions.
In collaboration with researchers from Bunda and other research facilities, tests would be made on soil suitability and what inputs are necessary to achieve optimum production and fed to the grower's association to disseminate to their smallholders.
This concept has worked very well with Mzuzu coffee, they just struck big with some Indonesian traders at the recently concluded Trade fair.
To generate local interest would be tough because as has amply been pointed out, Malawians tend to resist change.
Still, through aggressive marketing on mass media some progress would be made.
NASFAM managed the groundnuts one quite well, they could be of great help.
Another thing would probably be to find a catchy local name for paprika.
Subconsciously we all probably relate that name to Asians, Portuguese ie foreigners and hence do not identify with it.
This would also help differentiate it from the more widely known birds'-eye chilli (of Nali fame).
Tsabola covers too many different types of chilli, the language experts would have to dig deep and come up with something more original and hopefully catchy as well.
Finally figure out what else it can be used as besides as an additive or colourant and establish some international market for the Malawian brand of paprika.
*ching-ching!* US Dollars to stabilise our ailing Kwacha.

Long story short, it can be done but only with conscientious effort.

jones_1 · Veteran Member

guys,

i think growin paprika and chillies is quite a brilliant idea!!

i was thinkin,how about growin mushrooms on a large scale??

i know that bunda and chanco provides cultures for the mushroom,it is quite labour intensive but the profits are worthwhile!

there is quite a large demand for mushrooms in malawi and the suppliers are too few!

the raw materials used for growin mushrooms are cheap and can be found locally.

Black Panther · Senior Member

why cant the govt make this effort? Also, I think Malawians think short term . They want to make a buck quick . Isnt chili and Paprika hardwork.. as far as i know Malawians dont like to put in the work, wait and reap the benefits. They are looking for a quick fix...this attitude may be a huge obstacle for grwoing anything.

Like u mentioned about the Bunda College kids that dont reinvest in the country...why whats going on with that ? do they have any incentives.. ? Can they get loans to start businesses?

-- Edited by Black Panther at 01:04, 2005-05-31

jones_1 · Veteran Member

i dont know if the govt is doin anything,but theres some NGO,i think its UNDP,it funds local women in some areas in lilongwe to do this kind of business.

as for blantyre,i just know of several individuals that are self funded,and they get their crop from chanco.

i think if there was some incentive or maybe some loans given,then more people wouldve been involved in this business.

komanso i think if people would be determined and motivated, mwina zinthu zikkanakhalako bwino!