Chata, Malawi
10 February 2005

Food security

Before World Vision came along more than 80 per cent of Chata's households didn't have enough food to survive.

Cassava is improving lives in Chata.
Malawi’s erratic rainfall has caused food problems across the country for years. In areas like Chata, crop productivity was identified as one of the most pressing needs for more than 80 per cent of the households. Problems of decreasing soil fertility and high seed and fertiliser prices meant much of the population of Chata couldn’t produce enough food to carry them from one season until the next.

In 2000, Chata Area Development Programme (ADP) started a seed multiplication project. This was a three-year project designed to encourage the production of cassava and sweet potato, which are drought-resistant crops. The project originally aimed to reach 240 farmers, but it has been so popular that over 2,000 farmers have established their own cassava and sweet potato farms.

World Vision New Zealand Programme Officer Rene Onte says: “As they are drought -olerant crops, they have helped to improve the amount of food available to households after the failure of the traditional maize crop, especially during the 2001/2002 season.”

Many of the farmers who planted these drought-tolerant crops have been able to improve the quality of their homes and acquire basic household assets. The attitude of savings which has developed among the families is one of the strongest components of the Chata ADP.

Chata file
Chata project profile

CHATA STORY ARCHIVE
2008
Plenty to smile about
Zakeyo’s farm
Snippets
HopeChild
Counting down
2007
Model village
Snippets
2006
A glass of fresh water
Sweet
Snippets
Rabbits, rabbits everywhere!
2005
Snippets
Food security
2004
Don’t adjust your set
Snippets
2003
Real answers
Trees for life
Snippets
Beans ‘n’ spuds
Thinking outside the square
No kidding
Cassava miracles
Hunger & cholera

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