Business Unusual: Connecting Smallholder Malawian Farmers to Resilient Agricultural Systems
The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World’s ATI prepares smallholder tobacco farmers for an era of significantly reduced demand for tobacco, supporting their efforts to transition to alternative crops and livelihoods. Because this is a complex challenge involving many actors, the ATI employs–
- a systems-thinking approach for a comprehensive appreciation of the local context and for identifying the points of intervention that are most likely to produce the desired results;
- an investment model that ensures that each dollar spent builds capacity and/or strengthens local and national economies; and
- partnerships and collaborations with farmers, businesses, academia, governmental entities, research and extension institutions, and philanthropic, nonprofit, and community organizations.
The initial focus country for the ATI is Malawi, where 300,000 smallholder farmers are engaged in growing tobacco and the economy is highly dependent on tobacco export earnings. Heavy reliance on tobacco profits is widely recognized as an impediment to the country’s future economic growth. Tobacco farmers have started diversifying production, several well established farmer organizations are engaged in this process, and entrepreneurs are investing in alternative value chains.
Over the past year, the Foundation has put in place the ATI supportive structure and network in Malawi and a monitoring and evaluation team. Partnerships have been formed to identify, develop and build the capacity of Malawian farmers to connect with profitable agricultural value chains in both domestic and export markets. The Malawi Center for Agriculture Transformation (CAT) was initiated to encourage, harness and incubate science-based approaches, applied technologies and business-driven solutions. Through a partnership with Michigan State University, ATI is engaging government and private sector stakeholders in policy analysis, outreach and capacity building to more effectively drive agricultural sector growth in Malawi as tobacco income diminishes.
Speakers:
| Mr. James Lutzweiler Vice President for Agriculture & Livelihoods Foundation for a Smoke-Free World |
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| Topic: Summary of the Foundation’s Agricultural Transformation Initiative (ATI) and its implementation plan in Malawi | |
Panel
| Mr. Dyborn Charlie Chibonga Program Head – Malawi & Mozambique Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) |
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| Panel Moderator | |
| Ronald Mangani, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Economics Chancellor College, University of Malawi |
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| Topic: Attracting private sector investment and stimulating economic growth in rural communities requires government policies that create an enabling environment. What is the infrastructure and policy environment like in Malawi? What are incentives for the government to help tobacco farmers transition to other crops and livelihoods? How can or does the ATI help further an enabling policy environment? | |
| Mrs. Ngabaghila Chatata Co-founder & Managing Director, Thanthwe Farms, Malawi President Lilongwe Horticultural Farmers’ Cooperative |
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| Topic: A farmer/agricultural entrepreneur’s perspective about the challenge facing smallholder tobacco farmers and how ATI can or has supported this transition. | |
| Mr. John Ellenberger Executive Director, Land O’Lakes Venture37 Senior Vice President, Land O’Lakes, Inc. |
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| Topic: An insightful perspective on Land O’Lakes’ overall strategic approach to development, as well as its partnership with the Foundation for the Malawi Center for Agricultural Transformation, a center of excellence with a smallholder-centric model of innovation, research and technology development, dissemination and deployment. It is managed by a team from Land O’Lakes, University of Minnesota, Stellenbosch University and Malawi University of Science and Technology. | |
| Mr. Ronald Ngwira Managing Director Pyxus Agriculture, Malawi |
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| Topic: Pyxus is supporting a key component of the Malawi ATI: linking smallholder farmers to profitable agricultural value chains that provide alternatives to tobacco production, create new employment opportunities and more diverse agricultural products, and generate export earnings to replace the loss of global tobacco sales. | |
| Mr. Timothy Strong Director, Agriculture Finance/Branchless Banking Opportunity International |
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| Topic: How can the ATI be leveraged for the handshake for financing and to attract wrap- around services for Malawian farmers and entrepreneurs? Business-based wrap-around services, financing and extension create a self-sustaining system that allows smallholder farmers to adopt alternative crops that increase income security, as well as food security. | |
RSVP Information: For RSVP information, contact Ms. Karen Newman at Karen.Newman@smokefreeworld.org.