Supported through a cost-share program funded by USAID as part of the Feed the Future Initiative, Mr. Chitosa was able to build a large grain bulking warehouse, improve maize grading facilities to ensure they sell only the highest quality maize, and ensure farmers get the best price by receiving text messages about prices in 13 different markets twice a week through mobile information service called Esoko, which is also supported by USAID.

Grain bulked at Mr. Chitosa’s warehouse can be sold on the African Agricultural Commodity Exchange and purchased by buyers like the World Food Program. The bulking center creates such a reliable market for both sellers and buyers, that the Opportunity International Bank of Malawi, a commercial bank targeting the poor in under-served areas, will be providing first-time credit to 200 farmers selling to Chitosa Trading. I walked away this time with a smile on my face –- through a strong public-private partnership, a Feed the Future program was clearly making a difference in many people’s lives.

Photos by Morgana Wingard

The acronym for the program is WALA, the Wellness and Agriculture for Life Advancement project, and the impacts of these investments were evident from the shining, beaming smiles of the children and women as they showed off all of their hard work. And it couldn’t be more apt — “wala” means “shine” in Chichewa!

The community built a contour trench along the hillside to keep top-soil runoff and mud slides from destroying their maize crops. Farmers trained in conservation agriculture, in conjunction with Save the Children, constructed a dam and more than 100 meters of canal to channel the water to fields of the most vulnerable households in the community. They also created systems for collecting water and built receiving boxes to help manage water supply.

Families were also being trained in nutrition, health and sanitation. Households were taught how to construct kitchens with dish racks, bath shelters, pit latrines and easy-to-build hand-washing stations to reduce the spread of disease and viruses. And seedlings for mango, guava, papaya, orange and tangerine trees help to sweeten the benefits of healthy eating.

Yet, owning a dairy can more than triple a family’s income and dramatically improve nutrition. That’s why, as part of the US’ Feed the Future Initiative, USAID funds Land O’ Lakes to support local dairy production. The project also helps farmers access improved cattle feed, veterinary care and financial services such as cattle insurance and mobile phone banking.

We met Donata Kuchawo, a 45-year-old married mother of five and caretaker of two orphans, who now sells about 10 liters of milk per day. Through the bulking group, Donata has sent her kids to school, built a home for her family, bought two pigs and other livestock (saving on fertilizer costs for her maize and bean crops) and is hoping to finally receive a female calf from her pregnant heifer. If it’s a girl, the cow will be passed to the next family on the waiting list. The waiting list is a long one. While families can sell steers for 40,000 kwacha (about $250) no one knows the price of a dairy cow –- they are way too valuable to ever sell.

After a long, bumpy drive across fields and stream crossings — described as an “improvement” over the way owners Kerry Osborne and her husband originally found the place — we arrived at Funwe Seed Farm. We soon learned that this wasn’t just any old farm either. This farm is helping to improve food security, nutrition and generate employment for the surrounding community.

How do they do all this from one farm? It takes a lot of hard work, for starters, as well as a lot of compassion for the earth and community around them. Kerry is growing hybrid maize seed which not only improves yields, but is also easier to mash the kernels to make encima, a maize paste or the country’s national dish. She is also producing seed for cassava, groundnuts, soybeans, chickpeas, cowpeas and beans, many of which have a high protein content that help improve nutrition.

The cattle herd that they raise not only naturally helps to clear away potential fire-starting brush, but the heifers are donated into a milk-bulking group program that assists communities to raise their nutrition and income from dairy production.

And if you thought it couldn’t get any better, Funwe also employs more than 150 people all from the surrounding community that otherwise would have few, if any, alternatives for work. Sounds like a miracle seed to me.

We began our trip to Malawi at a research station that developed improved seed varieties to counter devastating disease and drought. Many of those plant varieties developed at Chitedze Research Station are sold to Funwe Seed Farm to produce quality seed for the surrounding community.

Funwe’s packaged and certified seed is sold to farmers in agro-dealer shops, which is where we came upon Mrs. Flora Kahumbe. Flora owns two agro-dealer shops near Monkey Bay, Malawi, at the south end of Lake Malawi. She was trained by RUMARK, a local NGO that gets support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. RUMARK makes sure that agro-dealers like Flora know about proper storage for seeds and chemicals, safe application of crop-protection chemicals like pesticides and the appropriate ways of applying the right types of fertilizer for maximum effect.

Yet, Flora is more than just a shop-owner; she’s really almost an extension agent that provides valuable knowledge to farmers on how to get the most out of their seed. With three employees in each store, Flora is creating stable employment in her community and ensuring that the seed she sells does its best to feed Malawi’s growing mouths.

Rosette ravishes crops like peanuts or “groundnuts” as they’re called in Malawi like the plague – its proliferating brown spots spread indiscriminately from plant to plant disregarding property lines. Every year Malawian farmers lose 21% of groundnut crops to this deadly pestilence – or approximately $9 million. In weeks a year’s investment rots under the scourge of these fatal marks.

To rescue these and other crops, the Chitedze Research Station (funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) is researching and developing new seed varieties that will be resistant to drought and disease. Investments in agriculture research and development averages a 43% return on investment and growth in agriculture is twice as effective at reducing poverty as growth in other economic sectors.

When I woke up this morning, it was gray, cloudy and smelled distinctly of rain. While this might seem like a gloomy day when staying in bed might be the preferred option, rain here in Malawi is a lifeline for millions of smallholder farmers who depend on agriculture –- and rain -– for their livelihoods.

Over the next week, I’m going to be learning about a number of agricultural development programs in Malawi. Some are part of the US government’s Feed the Future Initiative. Others are funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. What I’m fascinated by is the opportunity to learn about how all the programs put together, from research and seed development to marketing and trading, make up the agricultural value chain. Not to mention, the importance of linking all of these components together to generate improved farm productivity, income, growth and eventually poverty reduction. At ONE, we call this the “multiplier effect.”

If you take a look at ONE’s infographic on the multiplier effect here (see image above), this is how I envision the sites I’m going to visit this week will fit into the cycle:

All in all, I hope to see that these programs and initiatives together are creating a sustainable path out of poverty for Malawi’s small-holder farmers and rural communities. Stay tuned for updates along the way.

On Wednesday, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) board met and approved a $350 million compact with Malawi. The compact will fund infrastructure development and policy reform in the energy sector, aiming to benefit more than 6 million people in Malawi over the course of the five-year compact.

When the government of Malawi began developing their compact proposals in 2008, they performed a constraints analysis with the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the UK Department for International Development to determine impediments to growth in the country. During this analysis, energy emerged as one of the main constraints to economic growth. Just 9 percent of the country’s population currently has access to power (one of the lowest rates in sub-Saharan Africa), and that number is closer to 2 to 3 percent in rural areas.

Even with so few people accessing the power grid, the current power supply is too low to fill demand and power outages are common across the country. This leads to both losses in productivity for business, and a decrease in quality of life for Malawians. Alternative sources of power, such as diesel generators, are costly and inefficient.

By focusing solely on the power sector, the MCC compact with Malawi will allocate most of its funds to building and upgrading infrastructure of the hydropower plants and distribution network. A smaller percentage of funds will also go to reforming and building capacity in the government institutions which manage the power sector. This will allow for greater sustainability of the project and set the groundwork for its expansion in the future. MCC is also hoping that the proposed reforms and upgrades will invite greater private sector investment in the country.

As the 12th sub-Saharan African country to receive a compact from the MCC, ONE is excited about the project and looks forward to following its achievements. As MCC CEO Daniel Yohannes stated, “Success of the program will depend on the Government of Malawi’s continued commitment to good governance, accountability, and transparency.”

Photo courtesy of Eyes on Africa Foundation.

Five-year-old Charles was warming himself by the fire when his shirt caught the flames and most of his back was burned. His mother had to carry him -– on foot -– four miles for help.

Charles’ family lives in a remote village in Malawi. Because most Malawians lack transportation to medical care, the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) brings care to them. “Mobile clinics” offer HIV testing, prenatal care, family planning and care for acute illnesses. Separately, 250 caregivers visit homes in 60 villages.

On a listening tour in August, I visited a mobile clinic near the Mozambique border.

After a 90-minute drive on pockmarked roads, our group was greeted by 100 women and children singing and enveloping us. They reached their hands out for a chance to squeeze ours. Their hands were rough but their grasp was warm. Their music and smiles practically carried us on air the 200 yards to the clinic.

I hugged and smiled and locked eyes, hoping to superglue those sights and sounds inside my mind so I would never forget.

Twenty minutes later, we were inside a small brick building usually used as a church. A clinical officer sat on a cement bench. I claimed a chair next to him. In his lap were test strips.

The women we met outside entered individually and sat next to him on the cement. Their faces turned serious. One by one they reached out a hand, palm up, and he pricked a finger. He dabbed blood onto the paper-thin test strip.

He was testing them for HIV.

Soon, there were a few dozen tests lined up. Good news: only one woman tested positive that day.

Here’s more good news. This year, through GAIA:

• 13,139 children under 5 were treated for malaria
• 307 pregnant women received prenatal care
• More than 1,500 women received family planning
• 21,986 children received growth monitoring to track nutrition

These statistics are counting people who otherwise would have to walk many miles for even the most basic care.

And when I met Charles, he was all smiles, recovering in a hospital.

That’s proof worth celebrating.

Kim Dixon Perez is a ONE member and freelance writer based in Pasadena, Calif.

In the video above, Tom also stresses the importance of our work here at ONE — to tell our political leaders about the progress we see in Africa and urge them to step in, get involved and make an impact. If you haven’t yet, please take a moment to sign our petition to Congress and tell them to give $1.3 billion to smart agriculture programs, so that poor farmers in Malawi and other African countries can have a chance to feed themselves.