We’ve had a busy few days with visitors to our office and demonstration greenhouse. Thursday was degree students from LUANAR, the National Agricultural University; Friday was a local school; and today has been students from the University of Livingstonia. We always have a steady stream of visitors, and everyone is welcome.

Great to see girls from the local school learning new skills

Malawi Fruits is becoming well known throughout Malawi for promoting modern farming methods and it’s always surprising to see very familiar UK technologies greeted as “new innovations”. Many of our visitors have never seen a polytunnel, or drip irrigation, or even something as simple as a clip to trellis a tomato plant without damaging the stem. Our staff showcase all these things and speak about attention to detail in farming – how the little things add up to better quality and better yields.

A simple thing like a plastic trellising clip can make a difference to plant health

Visitors sometimes comment that some of our tomato plants have disease. This is deliberate: to teach about plant disease and treatments, you have to be able to recognise the symptoms and diagnose the problem, before you can sort out the remedy. I remember my Dad talking about being in hospital years ago and being surrounded by a doctor and lots of medical students – apparently he was, “a most unusual case” and so the students were all trying to guess what it was and how to treat it! Some of our plants have the same misfortune but serve as object lessons for the students.

Specimen for disease identification

The interest from the students is really encouraging and bodes well for farming by the next generation. With a continuously rising population to feed, Malawi needs smart agriculture and all the modern farming technology it can get.