The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism has acknowledged that it has done little to ensure that smallholder rural oil seed farmers are fed with information on the potential markets of their produce.

The ministry’s Spokesperson Wiskes Mkombezi disclosed this to YFM online following a concern from the Malawi Oil Seed Sector Transformation that it is hard for rural farmers to make maximum profits from their produce because they are ignorant on their potential markets.

Mkombezi said: “It is indeed true that most of them rely much on the middle men who buy for re-sell unlike selling directly to the processors.”

“There are so many processors who produce cooking oil from oil seeds and are in need of the raw materials, but what matters is we should disseminate the information and link the farmers to the processors which has been a challenge for so long.”

He disclosed that the ministry will work together with the ministry of agriculture on how best to bail out the farmers from the misery.

“We will ensure the structured market like the commodity exchanges that are involved in warehouse receipt financing, warehouse receipt system and buying and selling are used to disseminate this kind of information” he said.

Well known oil seeds in the country include sunflower, soya bean, groundnuts and cotton.