Farmers in Zomba district have been advised to start preparing for the next farming season by purchasing farm inputs as the farmers are selling their produce.

The advice comes from Zomba Agriculture Crops Officer, Josiah Ngochera, who asked farmers to utilize money from the sales of their produce to buy inputs such as fertiliser and pesticides.

Ngochera further noted that most farmers have a culture of using all their money for human needs forgetting to invest in farming, a development which leads to low production in farming at household level.

Ngochera said: “Market for farm produce is currently under way so this is the right time for the farmers to readily purchase the inputs while the money is still in their pockets and the inputs are cheaper than they will be during the farming season.”

He also expressed concern over the most farmers’ attitude of buying the inputs when the farming season is in progress saying during this time the demand is always high causing the price also to shoot higher.

Apart from the higher prices, Ngochera also said farmers spend much of their time queuing to buy the inputs as more people scramble for the inputs during the farming period.

Currently most markets are flooded with the farm produce as the farmers have recently gone through a harvesting season.