At the crack of dawn, Mefa Kapokosa, a farmer from Mzimba, Malawi is already up, hoping to quickly finish preparing breakfast for her family and leave for the maize field. This is a typical day for Mefa and other women in her community, who depend on farming for food and income.
As she is getting ready, her mind wanders back to the lean years when she could not harvest enough maize to feed her family, let alone surplus to sell for income. With the changing climate, rains have become erratic and dry spells more frequent, critically affecting yield and production.
For years, Mefa had been on the receiving end of various agriculture extension advisories, on how to manage land and water resources to mitigate the effects of climate change, but it wasn’t until she started taking a particular interest in field demonstration plots set up by the agriculture extension officer in her community that things started looking up. She explained why it was easier to adopt the sustainable land management practices that were tested and showcased in the demonstration plots.
“Learning through a demonstration plot is more interesting because I get to observe firsthand how crops are faring under various practices. I can see how production is affected by adopting or not adopting certain technologies, which makes it easier to replicate them in my own field” said Mefa, who has since adopted the recommended low-cost land and water management practices such as zero-tillage, use of organic manure and soil mulching. “Even though we did not get much rain this year, my maize crop was not water stressed,” she added.
To promote the increased adoption of good agricultural practices, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Sustainable Land and water Management (SLM) project, with funding from the Government of Flanders, mainstreams tenure security, land use planning, climate-smart agriculture and integrated watershed management in agricultural extension delivery.
Mainstreaming Climate-Smart Agriculture in extension delivery
Agriculture extension is the vehicle through which knowledge, technologies and innovations are transferred from researchers to users. A functional extension system ensures that investments channeled into agriculture research result in better production, better nutrition, better life and a better environment.
The SLM project supports the Ministry of Agriculture’s existing extension structures by providing technical and financial support to improve efficiency. Among other things, the project supports the mounting of field demonstration plots – small fields, designated as learning platforms for testing agricultural practices and technologies.
Highlighting the effectiveness of demonstration plots as a tool for delivering advisories to farmers, Harvey Nyirongo, Agriculture Extension Development Officer for Chasato section in Mzimba said, “using demonstration plots as a learning tool helps farmers make informed decisions as they are able to observe and assess the effectiveness of various technologies on their own.”
Scaling up and scaling out
Chasato section mounted a 6-acre maize demonstration plot, showcasing various low-cost sustainable land and water management technologies such as the use of Mbeya (organo-mineral) fertilizer, mulching, pit planting, vetiver grass planting, use of organic manure, construction of swales and other land and soil conservation techniques.
The demonstration plot is managed by the extension officer and farmers, who, after observing the performance of maize under specific technologies, replicate the practices in their respective fields. Usually situated along main roads and paths in the communities, demonstration plots aim to evoke curiosity in passers-by, some of whom stop to learn more and eventually adopt the technologies.
The practices are also disseminated through field days, where technologies are showcased to farmers from other sections with the expectation that they will further disseminate them to farmers in their respective communities. So far, 1 730 farmers, of which 1 124 are female, have participated in learning activities at the demonstration plot. According to the Mzimba district agriculture office, use of demonstration plots has seen an increase in the adoption of recommended technologies and increased yield.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): Regional Office for Africa.