How Deep Bed Farming is transforming farmers' lives in Malawi

Mr Mvula has used DBF for two years and he plans to convert all his land to DBF this year. He is happy to have learnt this method because by deep tilling using manure his land has been transformed to become productive again.


Kevin WhitchurchKevin Whitchurch | Updated: 21-08-2019 16:32 IST | Created: 21-08-2019 16:29 IST
How Deep Bed Farming is transforming farmers' lives in Malawi
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  • Country:
  • Malawi

Mr Gospel Mvula is a 34-year old man from Bala Section in Chikangawa EPA in Mzimba South District, Northern Malawi. He has been a farmer since 2009. He is married to Elizabeth Theu and they have three children.

Mr Mvula has been farming his land which has fairly poor soils from degradation. He was struggling to make ends meet because his maize yield would not last the whole season. He was harvesting between 300kg and 500kg of maize from an aggregate of 0.8ha (two pieces of land). In 2016/17, as a church leader, he and his fellow church member from Bala were fortunate to experience Deep Bed Farming (DBF) in Matuli, Msipazi and neighbouring areas in Emsizini EPA. They were very impressed. They approached Tiyeni through the Field Officer Mr Khalani Longwe who introduced DBF in Bala in 2017/18. He was one of those that tried DBF on 0.1ha of land. He was also nominated as a Lead Farmer for one of the three clubs that had adopted DBF by 2017/18 in Bala. The yield was so impressive that in 2018/2019 he started redeeming the land which he was failing to use due to degradation by converting it to DBF farming. With the land converted to DBF, it had a very good vegetative growth of maize crop and during harvesting time Gospel Mvula has had an extra-ordinary yield rise of maize from about half a tone to two and a half tones (see the table below).

Mr Mvula has used DBF for two years and he plans to convert all his land to DBF this year. He is happy to have learnt this method because by deep tilling using manure his land has been transformed to become productive again. With DBF he also benefits from using less fertilizer (100kg versus 200kg of fertilizer that he required in previous years)

 

Year

Ridges Land area (ha)

DBF Land area (ha)

Aggregate Yield (kgs)

2016/17

0.8ha

0

300

2017/18

0.7ha

0.1ha

550

2018/19

0.1ha

0.7ha

2,660

2019/20

0

.8ha

 

Land Area for Mr Gospel Mvula

His wife Elizabeth Theu is very happy to have adopted DBF. She says DBF has increased their yields of maize, beans and soya beans and groundnuts. She says DBF has more than tripled maize yield and it has also doubled or tripled their legume crop yields. She said this year they have more than enough maize and will sell about 1.5 tones for cash income. She said her life is transforming from poverty and shortage of maize to a food secure and a happy family by DBF farming.

Mr Mvula has been presented with a pig from Tiyeni livestock pass-on programme. Tiyeni runs small livestock pass-on scheme to help the farmer make quality manure and improve livelihoods from proceeds food and selling of the animals as they multiply. He has now been able to make quality manure all year round. Quality manure has been seen to greatly improved the vegetative growth of maize and other crops. Farmers in Bala have appreciated Tiyeni for DBF and manure also for vegetable yields which have also improved.

He is taking good care of the pig which came as a piglet in November 2018 and now (August 2019) it is about two months pregnant. Mr Mvula is very happy with his pig and expects to grow into a livestock entrepreneur by raising several pigs for manure and selling. 

 

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are the personal views of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)

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