{"id":69870,"date":"2018-10-02T09:33:59","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T07:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=69870"},"modified":"2018-10-02T09:34:00","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T07:34:00","slug":"farmers-embrace-maji-irrigation-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/10\/02\/farmers-embrace-maji-irrigation-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers embrace Maji irrigation technology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Chimwemwe Mangazi:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some farmers in Lilongwe District have spoken highly of a new solar pump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.times.mw\/malawi-using-25-of-land-for-irrigation\/\">irrigation<\/a> technology called Maji.<\/p>\n<p>The irrigation pump was introduced to the country early this year by Agriculture Trading Company (ATC) in partnership with a United States-based technology firm, Ego-Tech Company.<\/p>\n<p>It is aimed at enhancing crop production among small-scale farmers and elevating them into full commercial farmers.<\/p>\n<p>Chairperson of Namfunga irrigation scheme, Bonnex Mphande, who has been using the technology since it was introduced, said the pump does not require much energy to operate.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cPreviously, we were using treadle pumps and diesel powered pumps which were costly but the new pump is cost effective as it is run using solar energy,\u201d<\/em> Mphande said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>ATC General Manager, Madalitso Jelenje, said sales for the equipment have been increasing in the past months.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cWe are overwhelmed by the farmers\u2019 uptake of this innovation and it has proven effective in irrigation farming in the country,\u201d<\/em> Jelenje said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Chimwemwe Mangazi: Some farmers in Lilongwe District have spoken highly of a new solar pump irrigation technology called Maji. The irrigation pump was introduced to the country early this year by Agriculture Trading Company (ATC) in partnership with a United States-based technology firm, Ego-Tech Company. It is aimed at enhancing crop production among small-scale [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":69874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69875,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69870\/revisions\/69875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}