Office Irrigation and Water Supply (OIWS) has urged rural farmers in the country to adopt solar powered irrigation farming as a key component in increasing production.

Speaking to YFM online, Managing Director for OIWS, Dumisani Siwinda said that every farmer has access to the sun which made it easy and reliable for them to use solar panels in irrigating crops throughout the year.

“For rural farmers to access electricity in Malawi is not easy, therefore the availability of solar enables them to use irrigation throughout the year making them able to have increase in production,” he said.

Sindiwa further said: “Most of the rural farmers are not able to use electricity or other fossil fuels for irrigation due to high prices.”

“People in rural areas struggle to find fossil fuels or have an access to electricity for irrigation use as they are at high cost but the use of solar reduce operation cost which can be used in other areas such as buying fertilizers,” he said.

The organization has therefore reiterated all rural farmers to engage the use of solar powered irrigation in order to reduce operation cost and increase the produce in the country.