Improving Access to Clean Water in Malawi

Megan Putnam, a long term volunteer with Engineers Without Boarders (EWB) was our guide for the Agriculture as a Business Project in Northern Ghana. The project works with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture through its Agricultural Extension Agents (AEAs). The program was started in 2007 when three cards were developed for AEAs to use in teaching farmer groups how to be more effective. The program has now progressed to 11 cards, which are discussed in a participatory manner with the farmer groups. The farmer group that we visited, primarily made up of women, was near finishing the program. While we were there, they discussed the card on Value Addition to products. They have been farming groundnuts on a shared plot of land they were leasing with a loan they had acquired. The discussion was about the value that could be added by processing the groundnuts into paste, oil, and a biscuit type snack called kuli-kuli. George, the group’s AEA, lead them in a discussion of the risks and rewards of conducting processing and the extra coasts that would come with it. Other cards include topics such as group strengths, business plans, and loan preparedness among others.

The project seemed to be successfully teaching farmers better business practices, which in-turn have improved their livelihood. The program has helped the farmers we met with to increase their income by 15Ghc this year, which, though small, can make a difference in the life of these women in the rural north. While progress is admittedly slow, these women have developed an impressive skill set through the Agriculture as a Business Project that has great future potential.

Sarah and four other In-the-Field Travelers are currently in Ghana before they are making their way to Mali and Burkina Faso. They'll be visiting more than 30 GlobalGiving projects in the next month. Follow their adventures at http://itfwa.wordpress.com/.