Chinkhoma Selling Floors

Chinkhoma Auction Floors is the strategic central-north market hub located in Kasungu District, designed to serve the dense network of smallholder and estate tobacco growers across Kasungu, Ntchisi, Mchinji, and Dowa districts. The floor was constructed to decentralize trading within the vast Central Region and relieve heavy operational pressure on the Lilongwe Kanengo floors.

The facility was officially opened in 2005 (with full commercial operations scaling through 2006), making it the fourth permanent selling floor established in the national network. Its creation brought auction and contract market access closer to one of the highest-producing agricultural corridors in Malawi, drastically cutting transport overheads and transit times for thousands of farming families.

The primary leaf type handled at Chinkhoma is Burley tobacco, the dominant crop cultivated throughout the Kasungu agricultural zone. The facility provides full-service market infrastructure, integrating seamless bale receiving, grading verification, regulatory oversight by the Tobacco Commission, and direct floor access for major leaf merchants.

The Chinkhoma floor opens shortly after the main Lilongwe launch, seamlessly matching the harvest peak of the surrounding central-northern farming community. By decentralizing tobacco marketing in the Central Region, Chinkhoma has empowered rural commercial centers and continues to serve as a critical economic catalyst for growers across Kasungu and neighboring districts.