The Farming Futures Project Works with Communities to Build Climate-resilient Agricultural Practices

Loveness lives with her 4-year-old child in Katuwa, Bununkhu VDC (Village Development Committee). In this area of Nkhata Bay North, the farming communities that her family is a part of are extremely vulnerable to the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Crop yields last year were drastically lower due to heavy rains and strong winds, made worse by a lack of forest cover due to prolific deforestation.

Under these conditions, Lovesness used to struggle to buy fertilizer for farming and would consequently harvest little maize which didn’t last for her family until the next farming season. This puts immense pressure on her ability to feed herself and her family. However, as part of Temwa’s Farming Futures Project, training has been conducted on manure making and pesticides, enabling her to make Mbeya fertiliser, costing her less than she would normally spend and protecting her crop yields throughout the year. 

Like a lot of farmers in the area, Loveness is a smallholder farmer and her income alone is not enough to support her family. By making Mbeya fertilizer not only for her own crops but to sell to the wider community, she is now building her own business to support herself and her family. 

Loveness contacted Temwa through community engagement meetings conducted in 2023 at Kaulasisi on Sustainable livelihoods, where she learned how to strategise fertilizer production to generate income. 

“My business on Mbeya fertilizer production highly depends on farm inputs such as fertilizers which are expensive to buy and maize bran which is hard to find due to high demand by most farmers producing organic fertilizers.”

With the training on SAPs (manure and pesticide making), she had made 7 bags of bio-char and 2 bags of Mbeya fertiliser by herself. She believes her yield this farming season will not only be enough to feed her family but enough to sell as well.

Loveness would like to thank Temwa for supporting women like her with agri-business skills, and empowering people like her to form a well-established market for farm produce.

“Temwa has helped change the mindset of farmers towards impacts on chemical fertiliser to organic fertilisers and should continue to support communities so that the whole of Bununkhu VDC adopts SAPS as they are very important practices a farmer must have knowledge on.”

Success for Farming Futures First Year

The Farming Futures project’s first year, which began in September 2022 and came to an end in September 2023, has made incredible progress in its first year to increase communities’ climate resilience and improve stewardship of natural resources. Your support has been absolutely vital to the successful start of the project, and we are excited to share details with you below.

Read more about this project in our latest report here.