Groundnuts can change farmers’ lives—Cadecom

Director of Cadecom in Dedza Diocese, Patrick Namakhoma, says the groundnuts value chain and nutrition project being implemented in the district has the potential to change the lives of farmers because ground nuts has a ready market.

Cadecom with funding from Usaid through INVC-Feed the Future is implementing a three year Ground nuts Value Chain and Nutrition Project targeting 14 700 beneficiaries.

It is expected that after three years about 30 000 will have benefited from the project.

In an interview in Dedza recently, Namakhoma said ground nuts are easy to market because the products made from the crop are many.

“This project is a revolving fund because we want more farmers to benefit from it. We have spent about $623 000 and each farmer will get 10 kg of CG 7 groundnuts. Having started with 14 700 farmers our plan is that by 2016 we should have reached out to 30 000 farmers,’ said Namakhoma.

He said Cadecom is working hand in hand with other organisations like Agriculture Commodity Exchange (ACE) to make sure that the farmers have a ready market for the ground nuts.

“We have also advised farmers to form marketing associations which will also help in identifying markets because we know that with good rains the harvests will be huge,” said Namakhoma.

Director of Planning and Development in Dedza, Smart Gwedemula, commended Cadecom for initiating the project which he said has the potential to give farmers an alternative source of cash.

“This is a good initiative and we hope other NGOs emulate the example set by Cadecom to empower our farmers,” said Gwedemula.

Apart from giving the farmers the groundnuts Cadecom also donated 50 bicycles to lead farmers to solve their mobility problems.