In a bid to address the pressing issues of food insecurity, climate change, and environmental degradation, the Participatory Ecology Land Use Management (PELUM) Malawi Chapter and Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD Malawi), recently convened the 2024 National Agroecology Conference in Thyolo district.
The event, held from 12 to 16 August 2024, brought together a diverse gathering of stakeholders including academia, government officials, NGOs, and farmer cooperative representatives under the theme: “The Solution to Climate Change and Economic Crisis”.
In her opening remarks, Gertrude Kambauwa, Director of Land Resource Conservation Department under the ministry of agriculture, described agroecology as an essential tool that can drive systemic change in the Malawi’s fight against food insecurity. However, she noted that the absence of agroecology policy is the greatest challenge limiting the implementation of agroecology projects.
“We have been doing some work especially in our department but due to emerging issues like climate change and others we have had our policy reviewed to incorporate all areas that were not there in the other policy and agroecology will be incorporated without any problems to at least give comfort to stakeholders that are promoting this approach”, she said.
Dr. Keston Njira, a lecturer at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), stressed the need for Malawi to adopt and promote climate smart agriculture strategies to address the rampant effects of climate change the country is experiencing.
Taking his turn, Executive Director for Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD), Melton Luhanga expressed optimism that the conference will positively impact farmers to practice agroecology, which can help alleviate some of the challenges the country is facing in agriculture sector due to climate change.
The second day of the conference involved a field trip to Mulanje and Thyolo where CARD Malawi is carrying out several agroecology projects with farmers to improve their livelihoods.
Lester Chikumba, a lead farmer in syntropic agroforestry, shared his experience saying agroecology practices have the potential of restoring soil health leading to bumper crop yields. He urged fellow farmers to adopt agroecology practices to benefit from farming in the face of climate change and land degradation.
“We are encouraging farmers to adopt these farming practices as we are trying to deal with food insecurity challenges as the reliance on maize farming is proving futile with climate related calamities that we have been experiencing as a country”, he said.
PELUM Malawi Chapter, Country Coordinator Nozgenji Bilima said the conference aimed to share the agroecology practices, to ensure that smallholder farmers in the country have the knowledge to adopt sustainable agricultural production.
“Those that are involved in crop production are small scale farmers and small-scale farmers are in the communities, so if we can involve small scale farmers to be part of this movement it will only mean that we’re shaping our food system and also helping climate change mitigation”, she said.
The conference featured presentations by different stakeholders, discussions, and field trips, promoting agroecology as a sustainable solution for Malawi’s agricultural sector, ensuring food security, enhancing climate change resilience and promoting sustainable livelihoods.
The 2024 National Agroecology Conference marked a significant step towards transforming Malawi’s agriculture sector.
