700 Karonga households to receive winter farm inputs

CCAP Synod of Livingstonia Development Department (Soldev) has received K22 million from Tear Fund to help people that were affected by floods and dry spell in Karonga during the 2015/16 growing season.

During the 2015/16 growing season, many farmers in the district harvested little due to the prolonged floods and dry spell that affected thousands of hectares.

Speaking during a district executive committee meeting on Tuesday, Soldev programmes manager Mabvuto Lupwayi said the programme aims at providing farm inputs to 700 households from Mpata and Kaporo extension planning areas (EPAs) to promote winter cultivation.

“As we all know that a lot of crops were damaged by floods and dry spell in Karonga, the Synod of Livingstonia has started a post-disaster response project in the district to assist affected people with farm inputs so that they become food secure.

“Therefore, starting from this month [August], we will be providing fertiliser, and kilogrammes of maize seed to the affected households from 30 villages so that they do irrigation farming until December this year,” he said.

In her remarks, Karonga deputy district agricultural development officer (Dado) Perrina Phewa urged chiefs in the targeted areas to ensure that there is transparency when selecting the beneficiaries.n