June sees a very busy month at Support Malawi’s Skills Training Centre, Namisu.
We are currently training individually selected lead farmers in conservation agriculture. We train 30 lead farmers per group in all aspects of soil management, seed planting pits, compost making, moisture retention and pest control. All the methods we teach are sustainable, organic and use resources already available to the farmers. These lead farmers then take the knowledge they have gained and select 25 local farmers from their own communities and teach them the methods they have learned. In total, after 2 years, our training will have reached more than 3,600 rural farmers who all rely on subsistence farming to feed their families.
Using model farms to demonstrate the effectiveness of conservation agriculture is key in showing the amazing results that are achievable by learning new methods of farming which is not reliant on huge amounts of chemical fertilizers which are now unaffordable for any rural farmer.
