By Harold Mate | Project Leader
Farm Concern International Development Trust – Malawi commenced the implementation of the ‘A village at a time: Assets for income project in Zomba district with the identification of 12 Commercial villages for intervention. A village at a time is an agri-business catalytic tool that creates partnerships with buyers as well as promotes entrepreneurial skills among poor communities. It attracts further investment in education, health and nutrition thus influencing communities to posterity. Capacity development under this initiative is creating local experts that will train and influence neighboring villages.
The project has targeted over 3,000 households in 10 villages of Zomba district. The project has commenced with mobilization of farmers in partnership with government department dealing with agriculture in the region. Currently the project team is working with farmers in the region to build resilience against an ongoing drought that has brought the production of cassava to its lowest in the recent past.Various capacity building forums have been conducted as well as business entreprenuership clinics.
The project is continuously working with farmers to explore the various strategies for improving productivity expecialy through access to planting materials thus enabling them to increase production and produce high quantities of cassava for processing. The farmers are being mobilized to take advantage of collective action in production and utilization of village resources in processing of cassava into flour and other derivatives. Currently, the project is being rolled out in villages that are benefitting through the intervention. The project staff has started capacity building farmers on the various procedures in cassava processing to ensure that they are ready implement run the project. On the other hand, the beneficiaries are trained on how to run the enterprise as a business to ensure it is sustainable and will generate profit for the farmers after set up. The procurement process of the machine is underway although the funds raised so far may not be enough to complete the set up for 1 Commercial village but farmer are hopeful that the dream of a village based processing unit will come to pass.
The intervention has also put in place mechanisms for installation of the processing of the unit with the purchase of the walking tractor and the hammer mill already underway. These equipment are out of stock and will be delivered in the coming month.
This project continues to appeal for support to ensure the objective is met as well as benefitting the farmers in Zomba district through sustainable incomes
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