Making dreams become a reality for youth

29-year-old Chuma Mkandawire is the Director and owner  of Chikomanyama Estate which is 200 hectares is situated near Kazuni in Mzimba which is 72 kilometres away from Mzuzu. His journey of farming started in 2019 when he was in high school, he used to accompany his father to the farm.  While he was doing his vocational training in Gemology and Lapidary, he used to visit the farm often. After completing studies, he started farming on a land that he had acquired from his family.

Although Chuma had land, he did not have the money to venture into commercial farming. He tried knocking on several financial institutions but was not successful. Then he heard about the FInES loans that the Malawi Agricultural and Industrial Investiment Corporation (Maiic) is providing to MSMEs.He applied for the loan and Maiic saw potential in by giving him an initial loan of K20 Million kwacha.

“It was a dream come true for me, as most institutions do not trust youths when it comes to accessing finance,” he explained.

Chuma grew CG9 groundnuts variety on 20 hectares of land. He bought a groundnut plucker that has helped him to cut the cost in labour. He managed to harvest 13 tonnes of unshelled groundnuts.  He did not struggle with the market because he a had a contract with Pyxus Limited. 

“My dream is to be a successful commercial farmer. I want to invest into mechanization and irrigation farming which will help me to expand in terms of acreage.
 
Chuma is among the 8,663 youths who have benefitted from FInES loans.