Looking back and thinking forward

So, my first year in Malawi has gone and new one started. It was quite a roller coaster now that I look back to it. We came on February and very fast I got to know the slow malawian time while trying to work on my motorbike driving license in Lilongwe. Former president Bingu died in early April and soon Joyce Banda took over. Then came devaluation of kwacha which is affecting our lives up to today. In the middle of this hustle of politics and forex we kept on doing our work, oh, when we had fuel of course, never forget the fuel issues.

I tried to gather some figures from last year showing us how many farmers we have reached, how many cows there are around and what progress can we see in the dairy industry in the North Malawi.

We reached almost 400 farmers last year during our trainings and farm visits but we must bare in mind that these are only the farmers that we met directly. When we start to count how many did they pass on the knowledge to we can easily double the amount of beneficiaries of our work.
The number of cows is increasing slowly. Our misfortune last year was the amount of bull calves which seemed to be born in all milk bulking groups. Bull calves are normally just raised for meat but some good ones we have kept for breeding.
Mzuzu area farmers have a hunger for knowledge and that has made our work very easy. They are open for new ideas and willing to learn and put effort on their work. Must say, they are one bunch of hard working people and great to work with.

I am looking forward for the new year and hopefully we will double the amount of farmers that we can reach since we have fuel now as long as JB will keep those tanks coming to North also.