Farmers in Machinga hone conservation skills
Malawi Watershed Services Improvement Project (Mwasip) in partnership with Machinga District Council has trained 166 farmers in conservation agriculture.
Speaking on Tuesday in Traditional Authority (T/A) Nkula in the district, Machinga Agricultural Development Division chief animal health and livestock development officer Sparks Soza urged farmers to adopt climate-smart agriculture technologies to boost their yields.
He emphasised the importance of farmers embracing conservation agriculture to combat the effects of climate change.
“For farmers to produce more and improve their livelihoods, they must adopt climate-smart agriculture technologies which include the use of compost manure, conserving the environment and water harvesting,” said Soza.
Machinga District Council chairperson Simplex Diwa encouraged the farmers to share their knowledge with others and serve as climate change ambassadors.
He noted that practising modern agriculture was crucial for improving farmers’ livelihoods and, in turn, boost the national economy.
Tiphunzire Farmer Field School member Sakina Twaya said the project helped farmers to grow drought-resilient crops.
“We have learnt a lot of technologies and we believe that when we share them with fellow farmers, the district will achieve food security,” she said.
In his remarks, T/A Nkula said training farmers in his area will encourage them to abandon unsafe agriculture activities and deforestation.
The district has 14 farmer field schools under the World Bank-funded Mwasip project whose objective is to increase adoption of sustainable landscape management practices and improve watershed services
