Agro-Ecological Innovations Smallholder Pest Management in Eastern and Southern Africa (Eco PM)

EcoPM Project (Agro-Ecological Innovations Smallholder Pest Management) in Uganda, Zambia and Malawi, is a 2-year project being implemented in those countries where it aims to demonstrate and promote the adoption of the agroecological pest management approaches. The project is working with four IPM innovations, namely; Push-Pull Technology (PPT), Biopesticides, Pheromone traps and Parasitoids.

Currently, the project is in 8 EPAs across six districts of Mzimba, Salima, Mangochi, Balaka, Machinga and Zomba.

Some of the intended outputs for the project are;

1. Training of 400 extension advisors
2. Establishment of 1200 demonstration plots
3. Training of 66, 667 follower farmers around the demos,
4. Reaching to 333,333 farmers with awareness messages on FAW and agroecological pest management and Training of 330 women farmers organised into groups for production and marketing of pest management innovations.

In all these outputs the project has a goal to achieve equal participation of women and youth to about 50%.

The project has achieved a lot in the past season where 131 advisors were trained and 269 advisors have been trained in the current season. The projects established 957 demonstration plots where more than 30,0000 farmers were trained. And the project has also disseminated FAW and Agroecological pest management messages to about 14 million community radio listeners.

At the moment the project has engaged 320 women organised in groups of 10 in the production of Brachiaria and desmodium for sale as fodder and PPT seeds. Also the project has conducted training aimed at building local capacity on promoting gender integration and empowerment of women and youth.

EcoPM Project is working closely with both national and private partners in the registration and promotion of the pest management innovations.

In this year, the Department of Agricultural Research Services (DARS) is collaborating with the project to validate the Biopesticides being tested in this project prior to registration by the Agricultural Technology Clearing Committee. Also the Department of Agricultural Extension Services (DAES) is at the centre of supporting the mounting of demonstration plots and training of farmers across the EPAs and Sections on the four pest management innovations.

The project envisions full scale adoption of agroecological innovations in Malawi. In the next 2025 efforts will be put to support and facilitate policy level engagements to have agroecological approaches adopted in the agricultural sector planning and overall strategies of the government of Malawi.