When Eifa Nyirenda who hails from Mzenga in the area of Chief Kabunduli in Nkhata Bay district, lost her husband in 2006, her world turned upside down. Suddenly, she was a single mother with a child to raise and siblings to support. There was no safety net, just a deep desire to keep her family afloat.
“I had to start over. I bought a piece of land and made sure my child stayed in school. I tried farming but it was tough due to unpredictable rains, and sometimes I would plant and lose everything, due to poor weather conditions,” she recalls.
For years, Enifa’s life was a balancing act stretching every kwacha, praying for rain and hoping for a good harvest. Then came the Mzenga Irrigation Scheme, through the Programme for Rural Irrigation Development (PRIDE) and with it, a lifeline.
“When I heard about the scheme, I knew my way out of food insecurity had come. I was one of the first farmers to plant in the scheme. I planted maize on June 2nd this year and two weeks later, water started flowing into our fields. I could not believe it. Now my crops are growing beautifully,” she says.
With the scheme, Enifa can now farm twice a year, become food secure and have a steady source of income. She has planted an acre of maize and expects to harvest 50 bags of maize enough to feed her family and sell the surplus for income. For the first time in years, she feels secure.
Enifa is among 2474 registered farmers that are benefiting from PRIDE’s initiative at Mzenga Irrigation Scheme in Nkhata-Bay district at Traditional Authority Kabunduli.
One thing that excites Enifa about the Scheme is PRIDE’s intervention in linking farmers to National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF) for easy access to farm inputs such as fertilizer, seed and pesticides at a loan, something that most farmers would not have afforded on their own. With the bumper yield that she and her fellow farmers anticipate, servicing the loan will be a walk in the park once they sell their crops.
“I urge my fellow women to take advantage of this opportunity by putting the water to good use and produce more food. We have the support of PRIDE now it’s up to us to make the most of it,” she appeals.
Additionally, PRIDE has through the project trained farmers with good and modern farming practices and connected them to stable markets making the development more reliable.
To ensure sustainability of this development and ownership, farmers at Mzenga Irrigation Scheme have taken the responsibility to plant trees at the water source to make sure that the soil is well protected from erosion.
President for Water Users Association (WUA) for the scheme, Chipolopolo Kaunda, disclosed that farmers have set up a committee that oversees maintenance of the equipment at the scheme and raise funds for maintenance through registration fee of K5000 per farmer and a water fee of K3500 per 0.2 acre.
“We are very grateful for what PRIDE has done and we have never experienced this much yield before. We owe it to the trainings we received. Now we will be able to feed our families and generate more income,” he says.
Covering 900 hectares of land, with funding partly from Malawi government and the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), the MK 20 billion initiative commenced in 2016 but traces its roots to Malawi’s 2014 irrigation master plan, which identified top priority sites for irrigation schemes to address hunger and improve livelihoods.
One of PRIDE’s standout features is its inclusivity, empowering men, women, youth, and individuals with disabilities. Farmers are cultivating beans, rice and maize while wheat was introduced last year through trial programs aimed at seed production and farmer training at the scheme.
Senior Irrigation Officer for Nkhata Bay District Council, Edward Mjiku, highlighted the significance of Mzenga’s success in cultivating beans and maize crops across 350 hectares where impressive yields are showcasing the scheme’s potential for positive change.
“ At the moment all infrastructure works have been completed and the status of the project is at 99.5%.
“Right now farmers have been given all the resources for them to start farming and 800 farmers have already started cultivating on the 350 hectares while the rest to commence in the next two weeks,” he assured.
Aligning with Malawi’s Vision 2063, PRIDE’s initiatives position farmers to embrace agricultural commercialization and industrialization by adopting modern farming practices to increase productivity and contribute to the country’s development goals.