It is a weekend here in Galway and I am out basking in the sun with the courage of reflecting through the past week.
Drying of water storage dams has become more common with frequent droughts in Malawi. Photo Source: Decolius Kalumo Archives.
It was a tight week again, however, a lot of positives drawn. It is quite nice learning about CSA in Malawi and this past week I was busy looking for CSA Stakeholder contacts (Name, Phone number and Email address) to invite to the CSA Country Profile Stakeholder Workshop on the week of 14th May. I managed to come up with 53 contacts, Success!
A few facts from Literature review this week:
- Conservation agriculture and agroforestry are the most promoted CSA practices in Malawi.
- There are 22 policies currently in Malawi that do recognise the negative effects of climate change, though specific issues of climate-smart agriculture are not implicitly indicated. [A lot must be done on policies to reflect CSA practices and the current emerging cross-cutting issues of gender, youth in climate change action and disaster risk reduction]. There are also issues about land tenure as CSA may have long-term benefits which people are willing to adopt if they have long-term ownership of the land.
- Many stakeholders are involved in the promotion of CSA in Malawi and they work in collaboration with the Government set structures, especially the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.
- Research into the socio-economic impact of CSA is still limited in Malawi.
- Women are highly involved in CSA on focus crops; soybeans and ground nuts.
Further information:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0971852416640639
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-015-9711-8
See you soon, let me get packing as I return to Malawi this coming week.