Narrowing extension services gap

With an overall population of 65 458 farm families from 51 agricultural sections, Chitipa has only 26 field extension officers.

Nkhotakota on the other hand has 55 field extension officers to serve a population 93 159 farm families from 77 agricultural sections.

Given the official recommended ratio of 1 field extension officer to 750 farm families, for its population of farm families Chitipa would need 87 field extension officers while Nkhotakota would need 124 field extension officers.

The picture gets grimmer with almost every district and it all spells one thing: the vacancy rate in the agriculture sector is as high as it is in the rest of the civil service.

Chitipa district agriculture development officer (Dado) Lonely Shawa decries this: “The high vacancy rate in Chitipa has for a long time affected us negatively and we cannot adequately reach out to all farm families.”

Shawa believes government should not only recruit more extension officers for the district, but the officers should be recruited right from the district to ensure retention of the staff.

“Experience has shown that most people shun Chitipa because they feel it is isolated from the rest of the country,” explains Shawa. “Most of the civil servants who are sent to work in Chitipa from other districts do not stay long before they request to be transferred.

“So, if government recruited more staff from Chitipa to work within the district that would solve the problem.”

While concurring with Shawa on the deficit of extension workers in the agriculture sector, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Erica Maganga blames it on poaching of staff by the private sector and non-governmental organizations.

“The vacancy rate in extension services in the country is indeed very alarming,” explains Maganga.

To narrow the gap in extension services, government is exploring a number of avenues and one of such avenues is the introduction of the Sustainable Agriculture Production Programme (Sapp).

Sapp is a nine-year $51.1 million (about K27 billion) initiative from 2012 to 2021. It is piloted in six districts of Chitipa, Nkhotakota, Lilongwe, Balaka, Chiradzulu and Blantyre with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) as core financier.

The programme’s main goal is to contribute to poverty reduction and improved food security among the rural population.

But the specific development objective of SAPP is to achieve a viable and sustainable smallholder agricultural sector employing good agricultural practices (GAPS).

Within SAPP there are three main components namely: adaptive research and knowledge management; farmer adoption of GAPs; and programme management and co-ordination.

It is under Sapp’s Farmer Adoption of GAPs concept that government has devised a low-cost farmer-to-farmer extension network by using lead farmers.

The lead farmers are identified from the communities and they are trained by agricultural specialists.

With coordination from agricultural extension district officers (Aedo) in each EPA, the lead farmers are responsible for overseeing demonstration plots on farmer’s fields and other related farm activities.

“The lead farmer concept has really helped in closing the gap in extension services not only in the Sapp’s six target district but in other districts as well because the concept is being adopted by other players in the sector as well,” explains Maganga.

Sapp national programme coordinator, Alex Malembo, concurs with Maganga on the role lead farmers are playing in the communities in the wake of the high vacancy rate.

“Within Sapp, we are implementing good agricultural practices (GAPs), conservation agriculture and farm research trials, among other activities and it is the lead farmers who are implementing all this on the ground working hand-in-hand with agricultural extension workers,” explains Malembo.

According to the design report of Sapp, the project has identified 3 250 lead farmers from the six target districts to work with extension workers to reach out to the farm families.

Each lead farmer has three farmer groups with a membership of 20 farmers per group, making a total of 60 farm families per lead farmer in total.

A media tour of three of the six Sapp target districts of Chitipa, Nkhotakota and Lilongwe revealed practical gains the lead farmer concept has made.

Farmers are able to outline good agricultural practices they have adopted and farm research trials they have been engaged in as taught by their lead farmers.

From the farmers’ explanation and from what is practically on the ground, one clearly notes how much the small scale farmers have achieved from the good agricultural practices and new technologies.

But government is not solely dependent on the lead farmers to do all the donkey work in the sector as they are not as fully trained as the field extension officers.

“We do not want to overburden the lead farmer with all the extension work because their knowledge is limited and they have their day-to-day work to do,” explains Maganga.

Other than the lead farmer concept and the Kasungu/Mzimba pilot project, government is also exploring other avenues to close the existing gap in extension services such as the 321 text messaging where farmers seeking technical advice on maize or ground nuts can be assisted.

According to Maganga, the 321 text messaging is a special initiative between Airtel Malawi and government with support from donor partners.