Southern and Eastern Africa
Amazing Grace Does It All
Life has taken a turn for the better for Grace Moffat. She farms a 1-ha plot of land in Sankhani, a village near the Malawian capital of Lilongwe. Grace is 42 years old and has three school-going children, one of whom she adopted under a foster-parent program run by PLAN International, an NGO dedicated to child-centered community development. Like many women in the village she is a single parent struggling to make ends meet, and must somehow set aside a little money each season for school fees and other expenses.
Groundnuts mean a lot to Grace. “Chitedze Mtedza (groundnut) saved my children. I harvested a bumper crop in 1999 and sold enough groundnuts to pay school fees and buy clothes for my children.”
In 1999, Grace was one of 1000 farmers who received 5 kg seed of CG 7, a high-yielding, improved groundnut variety developed by ICRISAT. The seed came from the village seed bank, initiated through ICRISAT/PLAN collaboration and managed by the community. It was given as a loan, with twice the quantity of the loan as seed to be repaid after harvest. The seed she received was enough to plant just one-tenth of a hectare. But she tended the plot carefully, using most of the recommended practices (early planting, recommended spacing, proper weeding) she learned from the project technicians. She actively participated in project field days in farmers’ fields around her village. Her own field was chosen as a demonstration plot. “I have learned a great deal about groundnuts through these demonstrations and field days, thanks to your staff,” Grace told Pala Subrahmaniyam, ICRISAT groundnut scientist.
The hard work paid off. She harvested 18 bags (360 kg) of groundnut, sold 10 bags (200 kg) in the local market, and made MK 4500 (US$ 100). She used this money to buy books, clothes, and pay school fees for her children. She repaid the seed loan (10 kg) to the community seed bank by providing two farmers in her village with 5 kg each of good quality seed. In addition she distributed over 20 kg of seed to three of her sisters in the village, and encouraged them to grow groundnut. The remaining seed was planted in her own field the following season, and today Grace is the proud owner of a well-managed 0.5 ha groundnut field. “I hope to harvest about 2 tons this year, and then I can feed my children well and give them a good education. For this I must thank Chitedze Mtedza,” said Grace.
The ICRISAT-PLAN project shows that international research institutes can
maximize the impact of their work through partnership with national programs, farmers, and
NGOs that are ‘plugged into’ rural systems and farming communities. Grace is one
of several thousand beneficiaries of this effort in the Lilongwe, Kasungu, and Mzuzu areas
of Malawi. During the life of this project (1998-2001), 150 field technicians will be
trained to relay the new varieties and technologies to an estimated and about 19,000
farmers representing about 13,000 households through demonstrations and farmers’
field days.
