Queen cherishes her memories of her late father. She is sad that she hasn\u2019t been\u00a0able to share with him her recent successes and achievements.<\/p>\n
Although her dad died over 20 years ago, Queen Masukwa says that she still\u00a0thinks of him often. \u201cI would like to be able to talk to him about what I am doing,\u00a0about my family, and also about the work on our farm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aged 60, and the proud grandmother of 19, she is a model farmer in Zingaranjara village in Northern Malawi. Supported by Self Help Africa under a project that supported households to\u00a0diversify farm production, Queen and her husband Lisan now grow rice,\u00a0groundnuts and cassava alongside their traditional maize crop, while she also\u00a0breed pigs and poultry on the 1.5 hectare farm.<\/p>\n
They had begun rearing goats on the property, but both the male and female\u00a0were taken recently by intruders who came in the dead of night. \u201cWe heard a\u00a0noise and went out to check, but the goats, which had been tied up in our compound, were gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a set back to have lost the animals, but because we have new crops we are\u00a0doing okay. I am producing a surplus that I\u2019m able to sell, and I have also sold my\u00a0chicks and some livestock to improve my income,\u201d she says.\u00a0Queen Musukwa is chairwoman of a local women\u2019s group. The members meet\u00a0regularly, and save money that they then disburse as small loans, to encourage\u00a0women to invest in small business, and in activities that might help them to earn\u00a0an income on their farms.<\/p>\n
Queen says that the farm training she has received has allowed her to rotate her\u00a0crops, make compost manure for her fields, and to adopt new farming\u00a0techniques. \u201cI used to get just five 50kg bags of maize from this plot but I\u2019m now harvesting 20 bags,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year I sold 14 piglets that I had reared and earned 210,000 Malawian\u00a0Kwacha ($240). I used the money to put a tin roof on my home,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Self Help Africa worked with 13,000 households like that of Queen Musukwa in\u00a0Northern Malawi, supporting families to diversify their farm production and\u00a0adopt new farming methods that would help them to cope better with the effects of changing climate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"