FVR: MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN WOTALA VILLAGE

Luso Listener Club maize and tomato farm

The Luso Listener Club (Luso meaning “skill” in Chichewa) from Wotala village in Blantyre was set up with the help of the area’s Radio Extension Officer (REO), Mathias Thole. The club’s mission is to ensure food sufficiency and increase income for their families.Headed by a dynamic female chairperson, the group started listening to Farmer Voice Radio (FVR) programming on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and has continued to listen consistently, apart from when there is a funeral or a wedding in the village. The club has a constitution in place and has recorded all FVR programs and implemented many FVR practices.

Tree nursery for Listener Club afforestation project

The Listener Club members established a group farm where they have planted tomatoes and maize to improve their nutrition and sell the excess to buy a group radio and a group uniform to identify them in public places. The club now has a potential yield of about 1000 green maize cobs and 270kg of tomatoes on their farm. These crops are valued at MK38.000 and MK40.00, respectively.The Listener Club also planted approximately 876 trees, (worth approximately MK1.051, 200 after 3 years) for fire fuel. The chairperson reports: “Our average monthly income before FVR intervention was MK 860 per month per member and, after [the] FVR intervention [our] average monthly income now stands at MK1400 per month, per member”.

Luso Listener Club dance to the official FVR tune
 composed by the group for FVR programming
 on the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC)

Listener Club members also store their cereals better due to an Agtip aired by MBC that taught them to mix wood with hot chili to preserve their cereals from pest attack. “How could we have known that wood ash preserves grains from weevil attack if it was not for the radio?” the chairperson remarks. “Our husbands now even help us to work on our farms and do some house chores. FVR has made us aware of gender issues”, she states.