It’s only five years since we erected our first greenhouse in the North of Malawi. I remember the focus group we held with a group of 37 women in 2018: when we asked them, “Who knows what a greenhouse is?”, only 6 raised their hands. When we asked, “Who has ever seen a greenhouse?”, no hands were raised.

So much has changed in five years. Shortly we will reach a milestone of 200 greenhouses with some owners growing privately but the majority looking to our team for support and training. All our support up to now has been through our Extension Officers who use motorbikes to visit the greenhouses throughout their growing cycle. With the expansion in greenhouse numbers, this has become cumbersome, expensive and, with fuel shortages, visits have been more sporadic than we would wish. It’s time for change.

Gift Lyson, our Head of Extension Services

I was talking to a friend about the challenge of providing the right level of support for growers and she said, “I’m sure there will be an app for that.” It turns out there isn’t – so we’re making our own!

Over the last few days, the team have been working on scripts for the 30 videos we need to make for the app. There are 15 training steps in the crop cycle for tomatoes in greenhouses and we need to record them in two languages. We’ve also been developing the FAQ’s – I suggest the questions and the team have been writing the answers. We have an app designer based in India who is doing all the technical stuff and its really starting to take shape. The app will give the growers all the information at their fingertips, with video demos of all the plant stages; pest and disease identification features; and a messaging service to keep in touch with our staff team. It won’t replace our visits, but it will reduce the number, saving time, money, fuel and carbon emissions, while giving an enhanced service to the growers. Crucially, it will enable us to go on expanding and potentially reach out to a larger geographical area.

Peace Farm, near Ekwendeni

Today we went to Peace Farm to work out which videos could be recorded in which greenhouses, because we need crops at all stages of production. I took a picture of the site which tells a great story – at the extreme right you can just make out a house with a shiny metal roof. Nine months ago, before we started the project, that house had a grass roof. The owner works in the greenhouses and has used her wages to put on metal sheets, making a huge difference for the family in the rainy season.

Waiting for any opportunity to pop in for lunch

At Peace Farm the women have 20 greenhouses on one site and they’re doing pretty well with their tomatoes and peppers. Two learning points though:

  • One of the women thought the drip irrigation wasn’t working properly and used a knife to make bigger holes in the pipes – definitely a training issue there.
  • It turns out that goats love peppers, so keep the doors shut or tie up your goats!