Category Archives: Malawi

Beef fattening ready for take-off in southern Africa with new financing made available to smallholders
Animal Feeding / Botswana / Cattle / Event report / Feeds / ILRI / Intensification / Malawi / Mozambique / News clipping / PIL / PIM / Pro-Poor Livestock / Scaling / Southern Africa / Tanzania / Value Chains / Zimbabwe

Beef fattening ready for take-off in southern Africa with new financing made available to smallholders

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Rural farmers in Zimbabwe and the whole of Southern Africa are set to receive a major boost in their livestock production through the expected launch of the beef value chain finance initiative this year. The initiative, whose pilot project was successfully undertaken in Swaziland, includes a loan scheme for smallholder farmers who want to take up beef fattening for the market. This came out during the on-going International Conference on Livestock Value Chain and Access to Credit being held in Ezulwini, Swaziland. Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Brazil / Food Security / Malawi / Opinion piece / Soils

African agriculture: Basket case or bread basket?

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(Illustration on Flickr by Vintaga Posters.) Is Africa an agricultural basket case, or a potential bread basket? Michael Moran, in the GlobalPost, argues the case for the latter. ‘. . . Food security remains a problem in Malawi, as elsewhere in the so-called Guinea Savannah—a huge belt of arable (and largely untilled) land with unpredictable … Continue reading →

Africa / Asia / Caribbean / China / Egypt / Food Safety / Food Security / India / Indonesia / Kenya / Laos / Latin America / Livelihoods / Malawi / Nutrition / Pigs / Poultry / South Africa

Do a billion people really go to bed hungry? Or is a television more important than food?

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Foods of Khulungira Village, in central Malawi: Fish stew (nsomba zophika), boiled maize (chimanga chophika), mixed beans with salt and oil (nyemba zophika), dried mushrooms with groundnuts (bowa wofutsa), pumpkin leaves with pumpkin blossoms and potatoes (nkhwani wophatikiza ndi maungu anthete ndi kachewere wophika) and boiled eggs with tomato, onions, oil and salt (mazira ophika ndi … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Asia / Caribbean / Crop-Livestock / Food Security / Latin America / Malawi

No solution to food crisis without involvement of the world’s small-scale farmers

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Regina Frazer: Maize, potato, cassava, chicken, dove, pig and vegetable farmer in central Malawi (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). A Guardian blog post today argues that the world’s many small farmers are critical to solving the world’s food, and food price, crises. The blog says, ‘We should celebrate one of the largest but least recognised groups in … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Cattle / Dairying / Livelihoods / Malawi / Pro-Poor Livestock / Southern Africa / Women

A woman and her cow: Of bovine bank loans and entrepreneurship

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In Khulungira Village, in central Malawi, farmer Jinny Lemson, 32, started acquiring livestock with her husband ten years ago as an investment. Neither grew up with animals. First they bought chickens, then goats, then pigs, sheep, and cows. They also have ducks, cats and dogs. They grow all the feed on their farm. ‘Our life … Continue reading →

Livelihoods / Malawi / NRM / WLE

Balanced on a knife edge between sorrow and hope: 48 ‘least-developed countries’

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A young girl, Geneleti Luis, in Khulungira Village, in central Malawi. Malawi is one of the world’s 48 least developed countries. Khulungira is 27 km from the nearest paved road and 50 km from the nearest town. There is no electricity and no running water. No one here owns a car or a motorcycle and … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Production / Dairying / Insurance / Livelihoods / Livestock / Malawi / Southern Africa

Livestock insurance for milk farmers in Malawi

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Insuring livestock against risks and uncertainties is the only way that will boost Malawi’s dairy farming. Nico General Insurance, Marketing Manager Mr. Harry Mhone said this Tuesday when Land O’Lakes handed over a milk cooling tank for farmers in Mzuzu. The beneficiaries, Kapacha Milk Bulking Group, will use the tank to store milk before and … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Diseases / Biotechnology / CGIAR / Climate Change / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Ghana / ILRI / Malawi / RVF / Senegal / Trypanosomiasis / Zoonotic Diseases

ILRI to build climate model to predict disease outbreaks

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The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has received a $4.4 million award for research to build a climate model that can predict outbreaks of infectious disease in Africa. ILRI will work with 11 partners and researchers to integrate data from climate modeling and disease … Continue reading →