KASUNGU-(MaraviPost)-Many smallholder farmers in Kasungu and Mzimba South have improved their farming and marketing skills, thanks to the Marketing Capacity Building project funded by the Government of Flanders.
The project is being implemented in the two districts by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development.
It aims at reducing poverty among farmers through market oriented agricultural production.
The implementation of activities of the project is through the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach to help the farmers easily understand and practice what they are learning.
Recently, there was a review meeting for the project which drew together farmers and extension workers to exhibit various farm products they are producing.
The farmers also showcased the value addition practices they are undertaking and shared the benefits they are enjoying through participation in various project activities such as group bulking, collective marketing, village savings and loans enterprises.
Robert Khuliwa, a member of Takondwera FFS in Chulu Extension Planning Area in Kasungu, expressed his happiness over the project, saying his life has now transformed.
“These review meetings under this project help us become better farmers and better entrepreneurs. Before I joined Takondwera Farmer Field School I was harvesting 12 bags of maize per hectare and 8 bags of soya per hectare.
“Through the Farmer Field School I have learned good crop and animal husbandry. For example, I have learned that growing soya on double rolls yields much more soya than growing soya on single rolls on a ridge. This year I have harvested 24 bags of soya and 112 bags of maize from the same pieces of land,” said Khuliwa.
Smallholder farmers like Khuliwa have complained that they are often reaped off by vendors who buy their produce at low prices or offer good market prices after having tampered with their weighing scales.
“We have gained marketing skills such as collective marketing and bargaining through trainings provided by extension workers under the project. The project has also linked farmer groups to reliable markets and because we work as a group we are able to bulk our produce, find markets and negotiate prices favourable to us.
“Through marketing our produce as a group, I sold 60 bags of maize and got MK504,000 and 20 bags of soya and realized MK250,000. This was far much better than I was gaining before joining the Farmer Field School, thanks to the Government of Flanders,” Khuliwa further explained.
Some of the farm products that were on exhibition during the review meeting included different varieties of soya, beans, pearl millet, sorghum, maize, sunflower seed, groundnut seed, and tephrosia seed.
Timothy Banda, Agriculture Extension Development Officer (AEDO) for Luwerezi EPA in Mzimba, who is one of the extension workers trained as a master trainer for FFSs, said the Marketing Capacity Building project is indeed the way to go in improving farmers lives.
“The Farmer Field School approach helps us to reach farmers easily and facilitate transformative group marketing activities, including formation of village savings and loans, and capacity building of associations and cooperatives,” said Banda.
The Marketing Capacity Building project’s goal is also to strengthen the capacity of the decentralized institutions of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development to support smallholder market-oriented agricultural production.
The project is working towards ensuring that an increased number of smallholder farmers in Kasungu and Mzimba South are organized in formal groups and are producing for the market.
It is also enhancing a demand driven and integrated extension delivery system on market-oriented agricultural production in the two districts and making sure that lessons on smallholder market-oriented production are mainstreamed in future agricultural extension strategies and policies of the Ministry of Agriculture.
