Farmer Innovation in Malawi

A new study conducted in 2011 by Find Your Feet aimed to document and promote farmer innovations in the district of Rumphi in northern Malawi. It did so through focus group discussions with farmers in four of the Extension Planning Areas of the district; through individual interviews with farmers (14 in total); and through visits to renowned innovative farmers (14 in total).

Due to the nature of agriculture farmers must adapt and innovate to ensure a stable and high level of food production. The outcomes of smallholder farmer innovation have not always been recognised, however, and it is only in the past thirty years that there has been a move away the traditional and linear ‘top-down’ approach to technology transfer to a recognition of the value of farmer knowledge and the importance, as end-users of technologies, of their inclusion in broader innovation systems.