Enabling progress and resilience in Malawi

Agriculture is the lifeblood of Malawi, responsible for more than 80% of its employment and 90% of foreign exchange. Yet population growth, low soil fertility and climate change have left millions of small-scale farming families unable to produce enough food and more than half the population in poverty. Scientists at the International Potato Center (CIP) and other CGIAR centers have developed innovations to help farmers improve their harvests and cope with crop threats such as drought, pests, and diseases. But getting the right tools to the farmers who need them is still a challenge.

Researchers from seven CGIAR centers are working with partners to adapt and disseminate tools and approaches to help Malawian families produce more nutritious food, build climate resilience, and overcome poverty.

In coordination with the Deutsche Gesselschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), they designed a 13-week training course for extension agents that ranged in subjects from potato and sweetpotato cultivation to integrated farm management and agroforestry. Though COVID-19 curtailed coursework in 2020, 277 extension agents were trained between 2019 and early 2020 and, through collaboration with a consortium of NGOs, these support staff would go on to reach 288,000 farmers.

The training is part of a project called KULIMA, which means “promoting farming in Malawi” in the Chichewa language. Using the FAO farmer field school method – a participatory approach that CIP adapted for potato and sweetpotato more than a decade ago – extension agents work closely with facilitators and farmers to identify and promote innovations appropriate for their area. The benefits ripple outward, as each agent organizes field schools in 30 communities, with 30 participants each of whom, in turn, train more farmers.

“Within two years, I reached 900 farmers. That wasn’t happening before,” says KULIMA course graduate Michael Chome.

Malawian farmers mostly grow maize, which can be susceptible to drought and pests, so Chome and colleagues promote crop diversification and facilitate access to improved crop varieties, fertilizer, and other inputs. Farmers in Mulanje district, where Chome works, have begun to adopt crops that were rare a few years ago, such as potato, sweetpotato and banana. The addition of these foods is transforming family diets, economies, and resilience among smallholder farmers.