By Yankho Phiri:
Smallholder farmers in Kasungu have expressed gratitude over successes which government and Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Kulima and Afikepo projects have brought into their homes.
One of the farmers from Nkanile Village, Traditional Authority (TA) Wimbe, Alex Kalumako, speaking to Malawi News Agency (Mana) said that farmer field schools (FFS) that the projects offered equipped him with modern farming skills which has resulted in gaining bumper harvest.
In addition through a FAO supported project for marketing capacity building for smallholder farmers, Alex is linked with ready markets and earns good prices from sale of surplus.
FFS is where farmers learn about practices which increase resilience to climate change impacts.
“I am very thankful to the government and FAO for bringing in the projects as I am now one of the notable farmers around this area whose finances have changed through modern farming.
“We are now able to eat a balanced diet which consists all the six food groups as a family, have built a house and bought a motorcycle and livestock,” said Kalumako owing his prosperity to selling his harvests.
FAO Nutritionist for Kasungu District, Haswell Mulenga described the outcomes as exciting saying the two projects have achieved the desired goals that were set.
He said before the project in 2018, there was huge knowledge gap in nutrition, food production and market capacity among farmers just to mention a few but now there is a huge change.
“For instance food wastage was at 3.6 percent and malnutrition was at 36 percent but now all these have decreased to below 20 percent in malnutrition and below 1 percent of food wastage a clear picture to show that the farmers have grasped the project objectives,” he said.
Afikepo and KULIMA which aim at improved nutrition sustainable agricultural production respectively are funded by the European Union while the Marketing capacity building project for smallholder farmers is funded by the Government of Flanders. The projects are implemented by the Government of Malawi in collaboration with FAO and UNICEF.
