Malawi Project Team met with the Church of God in Solomoni Village. It had been reported that it was very common for villagers to run out of food, when this happened all they could do was just drink water!
Almost everyone in the church is a subsistence farmer, although they have their own land, sadly do not have the resources or experience to productively farm it.
The birth of the ‘farming project’, involving 50 farmers, including the local Church of God and vulnerable families living locally.
The Project arranged for local Agricultural Dept staff to visit and train farmers to grow crops more productively. Farmers were supplied with maize, cassava, soya, groundnut seed and fertiliser, which had to be transported to Solomoni, 16km along dirt roads from the main tarmac road. Crossing rivers without bridges was no mean task and involved a few complicated detours!
The farmers were of course very grateful, in particular Bennet Ntambalika (Ndirande) worked for 27 hours without sleep on one journey ensuring that the supplies reached the farmers.
The rains this year have been particularly heavy resulting in a poor maize harvest. Although yield has not increased as dramatically as hoped, new techniques, good fertiliser and high quality seed meant the yield was significantly higher from all involved in the farming project than the crops of others.
The harvest was on par with that of previous good seasons, the improved quality of supplies had certainly helped. In addition, farmers are now growing new crops such as soya, cassava and groundnut, all of which help to improve nutrition generally.
An important aspect was teaching farmers how to select seed to plant next year and producing compost, another benefit for the future.
The initial project farmers have saved seed which, with their new found knowledge will be passed on to other families in the village ensuring the benefits spread.
Here’s what some of them have said:
"This project helped many families here"
"We want to send our thanks and tell people elsewhere that we are happy"
"Every family has enough to eat, so we are happy"
