Evangelical Association Malawi to promote Mbeya manure among farmers
Evangelical Association Malawi (EAM) is committed to promoting the use of Mbeya manure to smallholder farmers in order to improve crop yield by using locally available materials.
Programme Director of EAM for the Centre, Amos Kalawe said this during field visit on Conservation Agricultural practices project being implemented in Lobi Extension Planning (EPA) in Dedza.
He said the project has shown that the use of Mbeya manure and pit planting as a new method which aims at increasing crop productivity on a given area.
Kalawe said in the first year of the implementation of the project farmers have demonstrated their ability to use the new method of farming they were taught.
The Director commended the cooperation that exits among traditional leaders, famers and extension staff in the implementation of the project.
“EAM designed the project with an aim of improving communities’ livelihood by empowering them to use the locally available materials to produce Mbeya manure which has proved to provide high yielding looking at the current crop standing,” he observed.
Kalawe urged the trained farmers to impact knowledge gained to others so that issue of food security should improve.
He said EAM received funding form TearFund Switzerland (TFS) for the implementation of the project to improve food and livelihood security of 6,145 households though conservation agricultural, small scale nutrition gardens and village savings and loans.
Inkosi Kachere IV of Dedza hailed EAM for implementing the project in his area adding it would improve food security at household level.
He said the project need to be extended to other areas so that communities should know how to produce Mbeya manure for use in their gardens.
Crop Officer for Dedza Agriculture officer, John Malunga said the method being used help to retain moisture content and this helps crops to with stand dry spells at times.
He suggested that a set of new farmers should be given the start up packages for the implementation of the project.
Group Village Headman Kauma said from a 50 kg bag of fertilizer they are able to produce five bags of Mbeya manure which could cover a large piece of land with promising yield.
The project targets 25, 800 beneficiaries including men women, girls boys children with disabilities experiencing poor livelihoods and there will be an estimated 8,000 indirect beneficiaries.
It runs over a three year period from January 2020 through December 2022 in close collaboration with Ministry of Agriculture and department of community Services in the district.
The project works with existing local structures such as area and village development committees and village lead farmers.
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