Bridging extension gap through a new model

Farmers in Traditional Authority (T/A) Mazengera in Lilongwe District have been having serious challenges to access improved seed and soil health technologies.

These include high-yielding and resilient seed varieties as well as inorganic fertilisers and other crop protection products to increase their productivity.

Malawi is one of the countries that have a huge challenge with access to extension services, which has limited farmers’ uptake of technologies.

The country heavily relies on public extension with a few private players complementing government’s efforts.

The ratio of government extension workers to smallholder farmers hovers around one to 3 000 against the recommended ratio of 1 to 500, according to Ministry of Agriculture data.

This threatens the livelihood of Malawi’s smallholder farmers who constitute 80 percent of the country’s population as their productivity is heavily compromised with limited access to improved technologies.

To reduce the negative effects that smallholder farmers may face due to low access to improved inputs as well as extension services, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra) has been supporting its partners, including African Fertiliser and Agribusiness Partnership (Afap), who have piloted the Community Agribusiness Adviser (CAA) model.

Through the model, the lead farmers are selected to become community agribusiness advisers who play a vital role in linking smallholder farmers to private service providers such as hub agro-dealers and off-takers, enabling farmers in their communities to access inputs and outputs markets.

CAAs are coordinated by a private extension worker recruited by a private service provider, complementing the government extension officers.

The private extension officer offers on-the-counter extension messages to farmers while following up in their communities collaboratively with government field officers.

“We are equipped with knowledge in good agronomic practices and village saving and loans association management which we teach other farmers in our communities.

“We conduct awareness activities that provide knowledge to farmers in terms of which inputs our line agrodealer stocks and the benefits of using those inputs,” said Samuel Joseph, a CAA is based in Kaluzi Village, T/A Mazengera Lilongwe.

Some of the awareness creation activities hosted by CAAs include demonstrations for good agronomic practices, use of improved seed and quality fertiliser plus other inputs that the farmers can access from the hub agro-dealers linked to CAAs.

The demonstration acts as a learning point for farmers and others in the community and the CAAs hold field days at land preparation, vegetative stage of the crop and maturity.

Beyond awareness creation on improved inputs, CAAs host baby demonstrations to showcase good agricultural practices for other farmers to learn. The CAAs also form groups through which smallholder farmers buy improved inputs from agro-dealers.

Said Mercy Phiri, one of the CAAs of Machite Club, T/A Mazengera: “We form groups and record inputs that each of the members wants to buy and we procure in bulk from the agro dealers we work with. The agro-dealers usually give us discount on the inputs we buy as a group and they also give us free transport to our communities.”

Through the groups, CAAs encourage each farmer to save money to buy bags of fertiliser as well as improved seeds for the next growing season.

John Sipikwa is one of the farmers in Nathenje, Lilongwe who has benefitted from the model. He used to buy small amounts of inputs from vendors, but later managed to buy bags of fertiliser and improved seeds through the group.

“I never thought I would manage to buy a bag of fertiliser in my life. I used to buy small packs of fertiliser but this is history. I am expecting bumper yields from my field this year through buying improved inputs,” he says.

Ministry of Agriculture director of extension services Jerome Chimgonda Nkhoma said the number of extension workers remains low in the country, but it is being supplemented by private extension workers, public sector workers who face mobility challenges.

Nkhoma explained that other than mobility challenges, existing public extension workers face operational resources challenge, which does not suffice provision of adequate basic extension services.

He said: “There is a requirement for an extension worker to be serving farmers in his or her catchment area, but we are not able to meet that requirement because funding is low.”

He said in the past, extension workers were being given bicycle allowances for maintenance of their bicycles for mobility purposes, but the provision stopped.

Nkhoma, Farm Radio Trust said in a statement that using radio for messaging would enhance extension services and information and communications technology services for the transformation of agriculture.

“We need a radio station that will be wholly dedicated to agriculture, for instance, advancing issues of marketing, value addition, agro-processing, bringing all players together.”

Agriculture remains the anchor of the country’s economy as it employs about 80 percent of the national labour force and contributes 30 percent of the gross domestic product.