Farmers’ Clubs Chiradzulu and Dowa – Going Nuts
The overall objective of the project was to contribute to social and economic empowerment of small scale farmers, and building the capacity of farmers’ organizations/cooperatives to produce high quality crops and access competitive markets. Thus, increasing profitability through farming for 1200 female farmers in Chiradzulu district and 6000 farmers in Dowa district as direct beneficiaries in their 4 cooperatives.
The idea was to increase farmer’s income through the production of groundnuts as a cash crop. Secondly, to increase food security by organizing the farmers into clubs. The Farmers’ Clubs were involved in activities such as conservation agriculture, crop diversification, livestock pass-on loans and small scale irrigation. The primary target group were young female farmers.
The emphasis on the second phase project was on growing of groundnuts by farmers in a well-defined value chain where farmers were linked up with Afri-oil. (A company in Malawi which produces oil from groundnut). The Going Nuts project was implemented with funded from the Dutch Government via Sympany of the Netherlands.
