8th June 2013: This is one of our farming groups in the city. This is the Tiwonge Women's group. They find a piece of unused land, bring it back to life. With the help of our horticulturalist they learn how to grow vegetables, then eat and sell
15th March 2013: Maybe Irish Aid didn't know it, but this is our farm. We bought it about this time last year for a group of amazing women to become a commercial, co-operative model farm. It is now run by 16 women and 6 men with the
23rd February 2013: Benidicto and Dave are cleaning out one of our water storage tanks to be ready for water harvesting later in the year. I think it's a stupid name, but all the experts use it, so
21 February 2013: Today's picture is from Wexford in the sunny south east of Ireland, where we visited the girls in the Mercy Primary School on St Johns Road. We were welcomed by the secretary, Mr Gateley, the Principal, and Miss McHugh, a long term family friend
2nd February 2013: This is Mary Mwanza, our second longest member of staff on the Lusangazi Farm. With Monica, they are cleating, transplanting rape and growing lettuce. Close in the background, on the left, is a very valuable plant for nitrogen fixing AND pest control. Further back
29th January 2013: Mango grows everywhere in Malawi in November/December each year. The problem is that they all ripen together and regularly rot before they are eaten. We are tackling this in two ways. Firstly we are grafting nine new varieties to extend the season and we
20th January 2013: These are the farm children Victor, Victoria, Minus and Hope with their cousins. It is common for a family who have good jobs to be sent the children of relatives who have lost their parents through AIDS, by the chief. Here we see the
20th December 2012: Every day brings something new. Wessie and Monica tilling to grow sunnhemp which fixes nitrogen from the air, in the soil. When it is about knee high we slash it, and let the stems rot into the soil. The plant grows again and later
19th December 2012: The pic shows Steve and Alfred looking on as the boys get their first glimpse of clean safe drinking water. We constantly promote tree planting, so its great to see young trees in the background. Harisen wrote! John, I have put the pictures into the well,
17th December 2012: This is our 2 hectare citrus grove at the roadblock, which is in its third year of growth. The guys are tilling, and doing some planting of ground cover like sunnhemp and gircilia, tephrosia which we use for fixing nitrogen, fodder and pest control. I
12th December 2012: Dave and Benidicto getting ready for a new crop to replace Irish potato that grew here last time. On the bottom left you will notice very fill irrigation channel and in the background are groundnuts, sugar cane and tephrosia (a plant we use to
8th December 2012: This year we planted about a quarter of an acre of passion fruit in between the citrus trees. We planted on wires and here is the first sign of fruit. We are hoping that there will be a market by Christmas. Now that they have