Over a third of the people in Malawi are undernourished and life expectancy is just 46 years. As the size of land holdings continues to shrink, and soils become exhausted through continuous cropping, many families have seen the yields of the staple crop, maize, steadily decline. It is estimated that 80 per cent of smallholders, who constitute the majority of the population, lack food between November and February. They have eaten their last harvest and are waiting for their crops to produce the next. Were it not for food aid and fertilizer subsidies, levels of malnutrition would have been even higher during recent years. However, research by the World Agroforestry Centre is now helping tens of thousands of rural households to improve their yields and escape from poverty.

The experience of Mariko Majoni, a farmer who lives in the village of Jiya,near Blantyre, provides a window to the future. After retiring from the prison service in the mid-1990s, he used some of his pension to buy mineral fertilizers for his maize fields. But then his pension ran out and he could no longer afford to buy fertilizers. His annual yields declined. The maize was stunted; the soil exhausted. Fortunately, he lived near Makoka Research Station, where the World Agroforestry Centre had been conducting experiments showing that intercropping maize with a nitrogen-fixing tree, Gliricidia sepium, significantly increased yields.

Mr Majoni visited Makoka and returned home with some Gliricidia seeds. “People said I was studying to become a madman when they saw me planting trees in my fields,” he recalls. For a couple of years, his yields remained stubbornly low, but then things began to change. Every year, he would cut back the regrown fertilizer trees to incorporate their leaves and twigs into the soil.Before long, his yields began to increase. Now he has enough maize to feed his family and plenty left over to sell. So impressed were many of his

The Centre and its partners in Malawi have been developing and disseminating agroforestry technologies to replenish the soil since 1987. Four related fertilizer tree options, including the most popular one using Gliricidia, have been tested at Makoka Research Station and on farmers’ fields. Results from 10 years of continuous cultivation showed that the use of Gliricidia without fertilizer yielded an average of 3.7 tonnes per hectare at Makoka, compared to just 1.1 tonne on plots with neither mineral fertilizer nor Gliricidia. The judicious use of small amounts of fertilizer with Gliricidia pushed yields up to 5.5 tonnes.

By around 2005, an estimated 100,000 smallholders in Malawi were benefiting to some extent from the use of fertilizer trees. What was neighbours that they decided to adopt the same practice. urgently needed was a programme to scale up the use of agroforestry technologies in a systematic way across the country. This is precisely what Malawi’s Agroforestry Food Security Programme, launched in 2007 and funded by Irish Aid, is doing. By combining sound science with effective partnerships, the four-year programme will enable at least 200,000 families – or around 1.3 million of the poorest people in Malawi – to increase their food production and enhance their nutrition.

During 2007, the programme targeted over 42,000 farming households in eight districts. They were provided with training and tree-planting materials, including over 95,000 sachets of tree seeds. The programme established 344 on-farm demonstration plots, 123 roadside plots and eight ‘farmer field schools’ to showcase the agroforestry technologies available. The main emphasis during the first year was on increasing the use of fertilizer and fuelwood trees, but the programme also encouraged dairy farmers to plant fodder, trees and farmers everywhere to consider planting fruit trees in and around their fields and homesteads.

From a nutritional point of view, fruits have a vitally important role to play. “Every year, around 600,000 children in Africa die from diseases caused by vitamin A deficiency,” explains Tony Simons, the Centre’s Deputy Director General and the manager of the Agroforestry Food Security Programme. “There is also clear evidence that women who are deficient in vitamin A are more likely to pass HIV/AIDS on to their children through breast-feeding.” Besides vitamins, fruits can provide water, energy, antioxidants and minerals, and for those who grow them in sufficient quantities they can provide an income. In 2007, 19,000 grafted fruit trees were delivered to farmers, and over 100,000 rootstocks were raised in preparation for the second year. The grafted trees tend to mature early, and produce large fruit with a good taste.

With the launch of the Agroforestry Food Security Programme, the Centre’s research in Malawi entered a new phase. Scientists will continue to develop and test improved varieties of indigenous and exotic fruit trees on farms, but much of the research in Malawi will now focus on the dissemination of integrated agroforestry technologies. “Scaling up is both a practical matter and research issue,” explains France Gondwe. “We are looking at what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to scaling up. What are the best ways of demonstrating these technologies to farmers? What factors affect adoption dynamics and impact? Are there some areas where these technologies work better than others, and if there are, then why?”

 According to Festus Akinnifesi, the Centre’s Regional Coordinator for Southern Africa, the new partnerships formed to promote the programme have been vitally important. Approximately 60 per cent of all the funds go directly to seven national partners, including government departments, research agencies and smallholder farmers’ associations. “One of the most gratifying things has been the way our partners have taken ownership of the project,” explains Akinnifesi. “We have encouraged them to take the driver’s seat, and that is exactly what they have done. Our role is mainly that of facilitator and knowledge provider.”

Akinnifesi acknowledges the importance of the support from Irish Aid. “Before, we didn’t have the means to scale up beyond a few pilot sites,” he says. “Now we have the means and a unique opportunity to make a difference.” With its strong emphasis on tackling hunger, improving nutrition and helping women – a third of the families targeted are headed by women – Malawi’s Agroforestry Food Security Programme is precisely the sort of venture the Irish are keen to support. Its aid to Africa as a share of the GDP is second only to that of Sweden, and much of this focuses on improving food security.

 Tembo Chanyenga, principal forestry officer with the Forestry Research Institute of Malawi, one of the key partners involved with the programme, believes that in five to 10 years’ time, the countryside could be dramatically transformed by the wave of planting – over 50 million trees will be planted by farmers – encouraged by the Agroforestry Food Security Programme. “The landscape will be much richer in trees than it is now and the soils more fertile,” he says, “and I can foresee a time when farming families will be able to eat fruit every morning for breakfast.”

Further reading
Akinnifesi FK, Chirwa P, Ajayi OC, Gudeta S, Matakala P, Kwesiga FR, Harawa H, Makumba W. 2008. Contributions of agroforestry research and development to livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Southern Africa: 1. Taking stock of the adaptation, adoption and impact of fertilizer tree options. Agricultural Journal 3:58- 75. http://www.medwelljournals.com/fulltext/aj/2008/58-75.pdf

Akinnifesi FK, Ajayi OC, Sileshi G, Chirwa PW, Harawa R. 2008. Contributions of agroforestry research and development to livelihood of smallholder farmers in Southern Africa: 2. Fruit, medicinal, fuelwood and fodder tree systems. Agricultural Journal 3:76-88. http://www.medwelljournals.com/fulltext/aj/2008/76-88.pdf

Pye-Smith C. 2008. Farming Trees, Banishing Hunger. How an Agroforestry programme is helping smallholders in Malawi to grow more food and improve their livelihoods. Nairobi: World Agroforestry Centre. http://www.worldagroforestry.org/library/listdetails.asp?id=50842

For more information,
contact Festus Akinnifesi,
f.akinnifesi@cgiar.org