Emily Alpert, a senior policy manager at ONE, is reporting on agriculture programs live from Malawi.
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:
Smart agriculture investments could be the development of improved seed varieties for cassava, pigeonpea, chickpea, maize and cassava produced at the Chitedze Research Station
Crop diversity occurs when smallholders, like the ones that participate in the Wellness Agriculture and Livelihoods Advancement in Zomba (part of the US Feed the Future Initiative) produce a variety of staple grains, legumes and vegetables
The Chitedze research on legume crops helps to provide a key source of protein in diets and improved access to fresh dairy products from the Chistano dairy farm also improves nutrition
The World Food Program’s Purchase for Project (P4P) pilot operating in Malawi right now not only buys food from smallholders (trade crops in markets), but the food they donate to schools helps kids, especially girls, to stay in school
At the Feed the Future Market Linkages Initiative, Chitosa Trading –- a grain bulking warehouse -– is a growing business, employing grain purchasers and creating a guaranteed market for small-holder farmers leading to improved incomes for everyone involved
Funwe Farm, a small seed production business supported by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, practices conservation agriculture improving soil health, helps farmers in the community to become more productive and creates employment for more than 150 people throughout the year
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.
ONE member Kim Dixon Perez recounts her experience traveling with a mobile HIV-testing clinic with the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance in Malawi.
A women’s finger is pricked for the HIV test
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.
While our government relations guru Tom Hart was in Malawi, he made a great video that I wanted to share. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, and almost 85 percent of its citizens are smallholder farmers. Because of the country’s geographic location, it receives either too much rainfall or too little, so this project — funded by US taxpayers — is a test to see whether African farmers can capture excess rainfall and use it to irrigate the land and produce more food.
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.
Another report from Malawi. On Sunday, we had an amazing visit to the Chitsanzo Milk Bulking Group (MBG), a USAID-funded, public-private partnership project with Land O’Lakes and General Mills that supports local dairy farmers in the rural area of Dedze.
In 2007, Land O’Lakes started working with the farmers to provide an initial investment of milking cows and a cooling tank. Their pass-on process requires farmers to give the first female calf born to another farmer (on a lengthy waiting list) as a form of loan repayment for the initial cow. Every day, members of the MBG deliver by bicycle 30 to 40 liters of fresh raw milk per day, and have it tested and placed in large cooling tanks where it is stored and picked up about every other day by Lilongwe Dairies Limited, which purchases the milk and processes it about 63 km away in Lilongwe.
I wanted to write a short blog post, as I had an incredible day last week. I’m still thinking about it now, and so I wanted to share my experience with you.
As Chris mentioned in an earlier post, we were in the Neno district of Malawi for a night, and the next morning, we went to visit the local school. There, we learned about an innovative radio project that airs educational programs across most of the country and is played in the classroom using solar powered wind-up radios. The educational topics include English, math, Chichewa (the local language) and life skills, which are featured in the Malawian National Curriculum.
After wrapping up our time in Blantyre — which Kim blogged about a couple of days ago — today, we traveled to Neno, a small town in southern Malawi.
Neno District Hospital, Malawi
Neno’s changed a lot in the last three years. That’s how long ago Partners in Health, in conjunction with the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative chose Neno as ground zero in their effort to provide quality health care in rural Malawi by working directly with the locals to create an improved, sustainable public health system.
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