Moses Mwaungulu Increases his Income with Balanced Farming

Overview Africa Africa Democratic Republic of Congo Ethiopia Kenya Lesotho Madagascar Malawi Namibia Nigeria South Africa South Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Zimbabwe Asia and Eurasia Latin America Global

MOSES MWAUNGULU INCREASES HIS INCOME WITH BALANCED FARMING.

Faced with such problems, in 2007 Moses began to experiment with balanced farming, where land is used for both crop and poultry farming, through a program started by Lusubilo Orphan Care, with funding from Pact. “I attended a training in homestead gardening and the use of bucket kit at Lusubilo, and this motivated me to start homestead gardening,” says Moses, “I raised banana plants, sweet potatoes, sugarcane, pawpaw, eggplants, green pepper, guavas, Spanish vegetables, lettuces, and tomatoes soon after the training. After three months of growing the crops, I realized that there were profits from my farm and my sales increased my weekly income from K700.00 to K17000.00.” Because of this tremendous increase, he now plants his land with a variety of crops and plans to open up a shop of groceries in the months to come. This has helped him improve the lives of his family, including those of the orphans under his roof. He is able to provide better clothes for them and they are now attending a decent private primary school in the district.

“I do not use chemical fertilizers in my garden,” says Moses, “I was trained by Lusubilo in organic farming techniques; that is what I apply in my garden.” Lusubilo Orphan Care, through a grant under the Pact Community REACH program, provided two bucket kits and two watering cans to Moses, and these have helped him scale up his farming and increase his yields.

Moses is now more respected in his community because of his successful, balanced farming. His family is also healthier because of the better nutrition they receive from the wide variety of crops they produce.

With funding from Pact Malawi, Lusubilo Orphan Care is aimed at improving the food security of guardians of orphans and vulnerable children and people living with HIV and AIDS by equipping the guardians with skills and knowledge of agricultural and orphan-care issues.

Moses Mwaungulu lives in Mwambuli village and is the Group Village Headman in Katolola, Karonga district. He is a guardian to two orphaned children. Land holdings in the district are usually small, and like most farmers in the district, Moses found it hard to grow enough crops to feed his family, and even harder to grow surplus crops to sell at the market.