From Farm to Fork
There are a number of ways in which the rice can make the journey from Malawi to Scotland, and to your school. Malawi is a land-locked country and this makes it quite expensive to transport goods to Europe. Here is a typical route:
- The rice is harvested by the smallholder farmer and dried in Karonga, in the north of Malawi.
- NASFAM agrees a fair price with the local association of farmers in Karonga (KASFA) and buys the rice.
- It is taken to the NASFAM mill at Karonga where it is stored.
- When needed it is milled: de-stoned, de-husked, and winnowed.
- The rice for export is put into sacks and sent by lorry to Lilongwe, NASFAM’s main base.
- In Lilongwe the rice is prepared for overseas shipment, export documents are issued and the rice is loaded into a container.
- The container is driven by lorry to Beira, a (not very deep) port in Mozambique.
- In Beira it is loaded on to a feeder vessel travelling to Durban.
- In Durban the container with the rice is transferred to a ship bound for Antwerp, making stops in Cape Town, Las Palmas and Tilbury in the UK on the way. The journey takes about 24 days.
- In Antwerp the container is transferred to a feeder vessel bound for Grangemouth.
- In Grangemouth the container is unloaded and taken to a mill in Motherwell where it is bagged and labelled.
- From Motherwell it travels by lorry to JTS’ warehouse in Paisley where it is stored.
- From Paisley the rice is taken by courier to your school.
Notice:
- The difficulty caused by the fact that Malawi is a land-locked country
- Rail travel to the nearest port on the coast is not possible or safe at present
- The time taken from the milling of the rice at Karonga to its arrival in Paisley is 3-4 months
- Despite all the obstacles, great care is taken to ensure that the rice is in good condition, and is clean and palatable.
