Agriculture Minister Roza Fatchi Mbilizi has hit back at claims swirling around her reform of Malawi’s fertiliser procurement system — with her team accusing shadowy trading cartels of orchestrating a smear campaign to discredit her. According to sources close to the Minister, she has come under fire after pushing for a major overhaul of how the Smallholder Farmers Fertiliser Revolving Fund of Malawi (SFFRFM) buys its stock — favouring direct deals with fertiliser manufacturers over the traditional web of middlemen and agents. She insists the initiative is designed to strengthen SFFRFM’s core mission: delivering affordable fertiliser and farming inputs to smallholder farmers across the country. They also say the new approach would help shield Malawi’s fertiliser supply from global price shocks and the kind of supply chain chaos that has rattled the agricultural sector in recent years. Under the new model, fertiliser would flow directly from manufacturers into SFFRFM’s distribution network, cutting out unnecessary costs and speeding up delivery to farmers on the ground.