Women embrace climate smart agriculture

Women from Ntchenachena and Chiweta in Rumphi have embraced climate smart agriculture to increase their yields.

  Mphizi Women Club chairperson Maggie Gondwe has since asked Civil Society Network On Climate Change (Cisonecc) for more support because the varieties are on high demand in the area.

“We have a huge seed market here because most people lost their crop to pests,” she said.

 Cisonecc national coordinator Julius Ng’oma said the Gender, Climate Change, Agriculture Support Programme aims at empowering rural women to adopt climate smart agriculture.

He said his organisation is working on pumping in more resources and offering technical expertise for the farmers to meet the demand for the seed.

“Since this programme was a pilot, we are planning to come up with a bigger concept to assist them to produce more of these varieties to meet the demand,” he said.

Cisonecc has been working with the women in building their capacity to adopt new agriculture technologies in their areas.

The organisation intensified the promotion of disease, and pest resistant crop varieties in the area, whose cassava crop was attacked by pests and diseases forcing the farmers to go into maize production.

But since the intervention of Cisonecc, the women are now into clean seed multiplication.

Some of the varieties being multiplied are Mathuthu Sweet Potatoes and Sauti Cassava from Lunyangwa Research Station.