He said this on Thursday in Neno district when the Agriculture office there organised a long day field visits to various farmers to appreciate the role they are playing in food security.

Reverend Sosola says that for now he is making K12 thousand per day from his banana farming business and is able to help orphans he is keeping together with his 90-year-old wife.

"After ministering here at Seventh day Adventist church, I retired and used part of my pension money to buy this piece of land where am planting bananas together with maize and am doing just fine," he said.

Sosola further says that the youth should take his attitude towards farming as an example, stressing that as much as bananas are disappearing due to Banana Virus BunchyTop disease, they can still make money by planting the crop in areas which have not yet been infected.

He however asked for more visits by the extension workers saying emerging technologies must always be made available to the farmers so that they can ably deal with diseases and increase yields.

The visit also took the entourage to the farm of another retired pastor Titus Ntata who is in poultry, macadamia and maize farming.

He says he is growing enough maize by applying manure harvested from the chickens the farm is keeping which include Kuroilers for meat and layers for egg production.

He however decried the challenge of resources such as maize, soya beans and others which he says are costly to transport from Blantyre as the district which has potential to grow the same, is not doing so.

"We are finding it expensive to buy maize, soya beans and sunflower to grind as feed so we are appealing to the people here to start growing these crops so that we compliment each other and create jobs," said Ntata.

Taking her turn, Neno District Principal Agriculture Officer, Diana Mayamiko Zambezi told us that the visits act as an encouragement to the farmers who are doing well and also as a learning experience to others.

She said that, " by taking on board members from other districts such as Machinga, Mwanza and Blantyre is a way of taping knowledge on how they are doing agriculture in their respective districts so that we improve our income."

The tour also touched sites of Beekeeping through the Mgwirizano group at Matandani forest, where its chairperson, Moreen Ngaiyaye said they are sending their wards to school through the proceeds they get from the sales and that they have also ventured into Village Savings and Loans Bank and have K500 thousand in their bank account while conserving the environment.

"We are keeping these bees in this forest as a way of conserving the environment as you know most forests in our district have been depleted and that is effecting rainfall and agricultural productivity," said Ngaiyaye.

Neno District Council chairperson councilor Mark Ngwangwa and District Commissioner, Hudson Kuphanga hailed the Agriculture office for organising the visits, saying farmers must often interact and share experiences in a bid to ensure that they are food secure and improve their income base.

Among other sites visited include fish ponds, maize gardens, orchards, goat kraals and pavilions displaying various types of agricultural products.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) funded the event which was themed " Use of Climate Smart Agricultural Technologies can Sustain Food Security".