{"id":2730,"date":"2020-02-08T13:55:24","date_gmt":"2020-02-08T13:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/?p=2730"},"modified":"2020-02-08T13:55:24","modified_gmt":"2020-02-08T13:55:24","slug":"development-desk-makes-farmers-smile-during-lean-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/development-desk-makes-farmers-smile-during-lean-period\/","title":{"rendered":"Development Desk Makes Farmers Smile during Lean Period"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color\"><strong>By Harold Mwale<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\">The Development Desk of the Diocese of Karonga recently trained and\nsupported farmers in the area of Traditional Authority Mwalweni in Rumphi\nDistrict in a bid to respond to the challenge of food insecurity in the area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\">This was done to improve livelihoods of small-scale farmers and land\nusers who often lack access to the agricultural services required to enhance\ntheir knowledge and skills in order to manage situations when there is scarcity\nof staple food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\">Most ADMARC depots, in Rumphi, are characterized by long queues during\nthe lean months of January and February with some depots running out of maize\ndue to high demand. These conditions adversely affect smallholder farmers who\nspend more time at the market while others go for casual labour as a cope up mechanisms.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\">Thanks to A+ Project, Lucient Gondwe of Village Headman Vwalamanja, under\nLuwendera VDC can now afford a smile during the lean period. She is a smallholder farmer, and\nmember of Mkonola B Irrigation Scheme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\">As a member of the scheme she started serious irrigation\nfarming in 2019 after the project had mobilized them to establish the community\nvision through the strength based approach. The community\u2019s vision included\neradication of hunger through irrigation farming which encouraged her to join\nthe scheme and produce maize, leafy vegetables and tomatoes on her plot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\">Aged 59, Lucient is a widow who lives with 5 grandchildren. Malnutrition among her children and the surrounding areas was frighteningly high during the same time in the previous years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\"><em>\u201cThe situation was bad because most\nwomen spent a good time at the Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit. We were all\naffected and development, at a household level, was also affected because time\nwas spent with children at the hospital. Currently, we are not affected by\nhunger and we have enough food which will take us to the next harvest and we\nare living happily,\u201d she added.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-very-dark-gray-color\">Lucient is also a member of village savings and loan group where she obtained\na loan to purchase fertilizer which she applied to her maize field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Harold Mwale The Development Desk of the Diocese of Karonga recently trained and supported farmers in the area of Traditional Authority Mwalweni in Rumphi District in a bid to respond to the challenge of food insecurity in the area. This was done to improve livelihoods of small-scale farmers and land users who often lack [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2731,"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":10,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development-desk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730","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=2730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}