Sunday, March 7, 2021
  • About Us
  • ImagiNATION
  • Adverts
  • Rate Card
  • Contact Us
The Nation Online
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Life & Style
    • Every Woman
      • Soul
      • Family
    • Religion
    • Feature
  • Society
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Chichewa
  • Enation
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Life & Style
    • Every Woman
      • Soul
      • Family
    • Religion
    • Feature
  • Society
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Chichewa
  • Enation
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Home Feature

Harnessing the enemy

by CORRESPONDENT .
26/07/2018
in Feature
3 min read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on WhatsAppShare on LinkedinLinkedinShare via Email

As crops dry, farmers in Malawi turn to solar irrigation.  Reuters correspondent CHARLES MKOKA highlights how water pumping and storage systems help ensure crops survive increasingly harsh droughts

 

RelatedHeadlines

Girls suffer as lawmakers await abortion Bill

Malawi, Morocco, and more – Africa’s biggest lotteries

Cylinders of hope for idle stadium

As climate change brings longer droughts, farmers in eastern Malawi’s already dry Lake Chilwa basin are seeing an ever-more-frequent disaster: maize wilting or drying completely, leaving families hungry.

“In the past many farmers relied on rain-fed agriculture to grow their food,” said Edwin Liwonde, a subsistence farmer in the flat area, which is also prone to floods.

But now, worsening dry spells “mean no hope for harvests,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

 

solar revolution | The Nation Online
One of the beneficiaries of solar revolution on Malawi’s crop fields

Faced with growing losses, however, farmers in Zomba District have come up with an innovative way to adapt: Solar-powered pumps used to pull up underground water, and newly constructed water storage dams that are also used to farm fish.

They have also begun growing drought-hardy sweet potatoes to supplement maize, the region’s increasingly at-risk staple.

The changes, chosen by community members, put in place by Malawi’s government, and backed with $4.5 million from the Global Environment Facility, aim to help 5 800 households become more resilient to climate pressures – and show what might be scaled up in other drought-hit areas.

In traditional authorities  (T/As) Mwambo and Ngwerelo in Zomba, and villages in Ntcheu District, solar panels supported on steel poles provide the power to pump groundwater from new boreholes into reservoirs capable of storing at least 10 000 litres.

A share of the water then is piped from the tanks to hydrants constructed in nearby fields – with another share going into the villages for household use.

The water systems, put in place last year, are capable of irrigating about 20 hectares of land each, Liwonde said.

At Gunde, a village in Ntcheu District, the system provides irrigation water and safe drinking water to 700 people in the area, said Ntombi Kafere, a member of the Umodzi Irrigation Scheme.

Farmers there expect it will boost incomes, especially as it lies close to Tsangano road, which marks the boundary with Mozambique and which links the area to nearby markets.

“This scheme is strategically located [with] fruits and vegetables growing here,” said Richard Banda, local chairman of the irrigation project. “Our farm produce will have a ready market, considering the Tsangano road is being developed to bitumen.”

Farmers say the changes are the ones they will likely stick with even after Adapt-Plan, the five-year GEF-funded project, ends in September 2019.

“We are prepared to forge ahead with the initiative, even if this project phases out,” said Raphael Nkhoma, one of 30 farmers in the new Chiswamafupa Irrigation Scheme in Mbalame, a village in T/A Mwambo.

The Department of Irrigation says irrigation projects are on the rise in Malawi as a result of changing weather conditions.

In 2016-2017, more than 2 375 hectares of farmland in Malawi began being irrigated for the first time, with more than half of that land in the hands of small-scale farmers.

Altogether the country has about 112 000 hectares under irrigation, out of about 400 000 where the systems could be used, according to the  Department of Irrigation.

Efforts to boost the amount of farmland being irrigated in Malawi face challenges, however, from lack of cash to insecure land tenure and shortages of electricity needed to power irrigation pumps, the result of drought hitting the country’s hydroelectric dams.

To shore up harvests, the country’s fast-vanishing forests also need to be better safeguarded to help protect rain patterns and rain-fed agriculture, said Marlene Chikuni, a natural resources management specialist at the University of Malawi.

Michael Makonombela, deputy director of the Environmental Affairs Department, said one key to the new climate adaptation efforts is letting farmers choose what changes work best for them rather than letting outsiders make those decisions.

“Farmers have a choice as to what is more practical in their local context, be it livestock husbandry, aquaculture or an integrated irrigation system,” he said.

“That makes the projects “relevant to the challenges caused by climate change”na

Previous Post

Livestock markets suspended in Ntcheu

Next Post

Tsar Leo releases new EP

Related Posts

Human fetus inside the womb
Weekend Investigate

Girls suffer as lawmakers await abortion Bill

March 6, 2021
WRDRX5 | The Nation Online
Feature

Malawi, Morocco, and more – Africa’s biggest lotteries

March 3, 2021
Chafunya shows some of the oxygen cylinders | The Nation Online
Feature of the Week

Cylinders of hope for idle stadium

March 3, 2021
Next Post
Tsar Leo: I am happy that I have released the EP

Tsar Leo releases new EP

Opinions and Columns

My Diary

Musowa voice missing yet needed

March 6, 2021
Off the Shelf

Off the Shelf 5 years on

March 6, 2021
Back Bencher

Let the teachers have their Covid-19 risk allowances

March 6, 2021
Guest Spot

Ensuring quality education for Malawian girls

March 6, 2021

Trending Stories

  • Lowe: We are trying to find potential markets

    Ministry plans to export 1m tonnes surplus maize

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • SKC ‘intervenes’ on youths’ demos

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Govt to finance 15 major projects

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Govt, TUM gloves off

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Let the teachers have their Covid-19 risk allowances

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Values
  • Our Philosophy
  • Editorial policy
  • Advertising Policy
  • Code of Conduct
  • Plagiarism disclaimer
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use

© 2021 Nation Publications Limited. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Life & Style
    • Every Woman
      • Soul
      • Family
    • Religion
    • Feature
  • Society
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Chichewa
  • Enation

© 2020 Nation Publications Limited. All Rights Reserved.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.