HARNESS FARMS: Harnessing agroecological food systems to enhance nutrition, income, market access and food security among smallholder farmers in northern Malawi.

Project goal

The overall goal of this project is to advance a sustainable, resilient and equitable food system transformation in Malawi by building local and regional agroecological markets, that long term will aim to improve food security and incomes of small-scale producers, support gender-sensitive small and medium food enterprise development, and increase local consumers’ access to diverse, healthy foods, while sustaining a healthy agro-ecosystem.

Four territorial markets

Three Malawian organizations Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC), Slow Food Malawi (SFM) and Biodiversity Conservation Initiative (BCI), have joined forces as the Northern Agroecology Collaborative to help establish 4 territorial agroecological markets, in Rumphi, Mzuzu, Ekwendeni and Enukweni. Dr. Allison Loconto (INRAE, France) and Dr. Rachel Bezner Kerr are collaborating researchers in this project.

The team carried out stakeholder workshops in each urban location, bringing together municipal authorities, market vendors, farmers and consumers to discuss the priorities and challenges for agroecological markets in each site. Markets were established in 2024.

Potential and Challenges of agroecological markets

We are using a combination of consumer surveys, market price and purchase data, and qualitative interviews, to assess the potential and challenges for establishing agroecological markets in Northern Malawi. We have had 3 graduate students connected to INRAE carry out internships as part of this project.

This research and development project is being carried out with the generous support of Biovision Foundation.