{"id":76979,"date":"2019-04-18T03:34:14","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T01:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=76979"},"modified":"2019-04-18T03:34:14","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T01:34:14","slug":"enhanced-productivity-project-excites-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/04\/18\/enhanced-productivity-project-excites-farmers\/","title":{"rendered":"Enhanced productivity project excites farmers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Feston Malekezo: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At least 44,090 smallholder farmers in Nkhata Bay District are expected to benefit from a project aimed at enhancing productivity through technology.<\/p>\n<p>The project, dubbed Better Extension Training Transforming Economic Returns (Better), is being implemented by a consortium of agricultural organisat ions. These include Self Help Africa, Action Aid, Evangelical Association of Malawi, Adventist Relief and Development Agency and Plan Malawi.<\/p>\n<p>The project is being run in 10 districts of the country and these include Chitipa, Karonga, Mzimba, Nkhata-Bay, Kasungu, Nkhotakota, Salima, Chiradzulu, Thyolo and Mulanje.<\/p>\n<p>One of the beneficiaries, Musatero Chirwa, said the project had proven effective.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cClimate change has always been a challenge. When we experience poor rainfall, we are being told to use methods such as conservation agriculture which works.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cApart from that, we are told to plant crops such as cassava and sweet potato which do not require heavy rainfall,\u201d<\/em> Chirwa said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>ActionAid Project Coordinator, Greshian Kamnyamata, said results of a recent study conducted in two districts of Chiradzulu and Nkhata Bay showed that most farmers were not accessing extension services.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cWhat excites us most is that the farmers are able to explain even the scientific methodologies they are using when cultivating.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe farmers are also able to explain what happens to the crop at every stage. We are very impressed,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The implementing organisations also partnered the government through district agriculture development offices in providing technical support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Feston Malekezo: At least 44,090 smallholder farmers in Nkhata Bay District are expected to benefit from a project aimed at enhancing productivity through technology. The project, dubbed Better Extension Training Transforming Economic Returns (Better), is being implemented by a consortium of agricultural organisat ions. These include Self Help Africa, Action Aid, Evangelical Association of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":76983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76979","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\/76979","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=76979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76984,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76979\/revisions\/76984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}