January 23, 2008
NASFAM Celebrates 10 Years
The National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM) celebrated its 10th anniversary on December 20th at the Natural Resources College in Lilongwe, Malawi. ACDI/VOCA was integral to the formation of NASFAM in 1997 and has provided important support to the association, which today represents over 100,000 farmer families. The event also celebrated the opening of the NASFAM House, a center to assist smallholder Malawian farmers.
NASFAM Chief Executive Officer Dyborn Chibonga complimented the members for their commitment to making NASFAM a model of success for the rest of Malawi. The association’s work developing smallholders’ skills and linkages to markets has linked members directly to local supermarkets and export markets in Africa and Europe, thus creating new sources of income and resulting in increased profits from high-value crops.
“It gives us pride now that NASFAM groundnuts are being sold in supermarkets like Tescos in the U.K. It also gives us pride that NASFAM, a smallholder organization, is able to sell high-quality rice throughout the year in the country’s supermarkets,” NASFAM Board Chairwoman Fanny Makina said.
Makina explained that NASFAM gives smallholder farmers a collective voice for appealing to Malawi’s agricultural ministries and that they are now being heard in policy-making circles. “We contribute to the development of all key agricultural policies as well as national development policies in the country,” Makina said.
ACDI/VOCA began its work in Malawi under the USAID-funded Smallholder Agribusiness Development Project (SADP) in 1995. In 1997 ACDI/VOCA helped to establish NASFAM and provided support through SADP and, later, through the program’s successor, the NASFAM Strengthening Project, which ACDI/VOCA implemented from 2000-2003. As a result of ACDI/VOCA’s work and the establishment of NASFAM, 100,000 of Malawi’s smallholder farmers are earning a better living, sending more children to school, paying for needed medical services, improving their families’ nutrition and housing, and reinvesting their profits in rural microenterprise activities.
NASFAM is a member-owned, democratically governed, nonpolitical organization that provides business services to its smallholder farmer members. Founded on the principles of collective action and self-reliance, the organization works to empower farmers at the grass-roots level, encouraging them to form cohesive village-based clubs and associations in order to realize increasing agricultural returns and contribute to economic development.
NASFAM provides a range of services to its members, including transportation and input procurement contracting, domestic and exports sales, training in business management, quality control and literacy. Its adult literacy program has so far trained 30,000 farmers. All commercial services are paid through membership dues and fees, with external donor funds supporting training and education. In addition, NASFAM enables thousands of small farmers to engage in democratic processes, and to establish partnerships with financial service providers. Its motto is “The future belongs to the organized.”
To learn more about ACDI/VOCA’s work with NASFAM, click here.
To learn more about ACDI/VOCA’s commitment to sustainability, click here.