By Saloom Longwe <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The common myth among farmers, subsistence and commercial\nalike, is no chemical fertilizer, no high crop production. This used to be the\nbelief of Nighted Mwakapenda and fellow farmers in Mwaulambia, before they were\nintroduced to sustainable agricultural practices which the Development Desk of the\nDiocese of Karonga is promoting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As one way of improving household agricultural\nproductivity, Integrated Rural Development Project is promoting five SAPs namely;\nleguminous interplanting, mulching, use of liquid manure, use of compost manure\nand crop rotation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story is different today for Mwakapenda. He is one of\nthe farmers who have adopted the practice of 3 SAPs technologies on a single\nfield. He is within the age bracket of 30-40, with a family size of 6 members. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nighted cultivates cereal crops for household consumption\nand produces vegetables from backyard garden for food and sells the surplus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the garden he intercrops leaf and fruit vegetables\nwith legumes, and with the use of compost and liquid manure crops grow with\nvigour hence realizing high yield in the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To curb the effects of harsh weather conditions, mulching\nis also being used to retain soil moisture and regulation of soil temperatures.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mwakapenda has reduced use of fertilizer and allocated\nsome of the saved funds into other activities such as livestock production and iron\nsheets. He appreciates that mulching helped him reduce the number of times for watering\nthe garden per day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being a role model in the area, other farmers visit him\nto learn from him. Mwakapenda also engages in forestry and agroforestry\nproduction, which give him material for mulching and when leaves decompose they\nimprove soil fertility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mwakapenda is one of the beneficiaries of the Integrated\nRural Development Project being implemented by the Development Desk of the\nDiocese of Karonga with support from Misereor Germany. The project is being\nimplemented in Karonga and Chitipa districts targeting 2400 households <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Saloom Longwe The common myth among farmers, subsistence and commercial alike, is no chemical fertilizer, no high crop production. This used to be the belief of Nighted Mwakapenda and fellow farmers in Mwaulambia, before they were introduced to sustainable agricultural practices which the Development Desk of the Diocese of Karonga is promoting. As one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"iawp_total_views":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}