LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The country’s agriculture thinktank in crop production AECI, formely Farmers Organisation Limited (FOL) on Friday, June 6, 2025 donated MK7 million to Malawi Red Cross Society (MRCS) to support the implementation of a project dubbed as “Enhancing Food Security and Livelihoods through Irrigation Farming for Smallholder Farmers.”
The project which runs from the month of June to December 2025, is being implemented in Ntchisi District, targeting 200 households through 10 farmer organizations.
AECI Operations Manager, Sangwani Harawa said this support will improve the social economic livelihoods for the beneficiaries.
“Malawi Red Cross Society plays a very critical role in supporting vulnerable members of the society. As an organization, we noted that we could leverage them from the potential synergies of working with such an organization which has a long history of working with vulnerable communities and which also has very good structures on the ground.
“We will continue collaborating with the Malawi Red Cross Society as we have been doing in the past to enhance production for rural peoples’ livelihoods,”
In his remarks after receiving the funds, MRCS Director of Finance and Administration, Abel Khombe said the donation is timely and effective for smooth implementation of the project.
Khombe added that the initiative will provide agricultural inputs for farmers, markets, and training for new irrigation technologies.
“The funds have come timely because the interventions that we’re doing now directly relates to the communities that we work in, and more importantly, MRCS is a grassroots institution, a volunteer based organization, which means directly working with rural communities.
“So this assistance is very important because it’s hinging on very important things that affects the community. You look at issues of food security and also issues of nutrition”, lauds Khombe.
He added, “Basically the project will involve us providing agriculture inputs. This includes seeds and also basic farming tools. It will also involve training of farmers onto the new technologies in irrigation and in that case, these two elements will support your production for the farmers.
“Thereafter, we anticipate also to provide markets for those products that will come from the farming activities by linking the farmers to available markets the levels”.