Drip Irrigation
In early 2001, with the worst famine in over 50 years ravishing the nation of Malawi, Napoleon Dzombe and members of the Malawi Project started laying the groundwork to help bring aid to the people.
The aid plan called for a two-pronged approach. The first was an immediate influx of food to offset the starvation that was striking down the villages. The second was to follow up with a program of agriculture development that would break the back of any future weather-related crop shortages. To carry out the second part of the program, help was requested from Healing Hands International in Nashville, Tennessee, and Chapin Watermatics of upstate New York. Both groups immediately responded to the request for assistance.
In mid-2001 the Malawi Project purchased three thousand drip irrigation systems, Healing Hands sent trainers under the leadership of David Goolsby, director for Ag development for Healing Hands, and Chapin Watermatics manufactured the systems and sent Richard Chapin, the inventor of the systems, to assist in training Malawi instructors.
After being trained as instructors, fifteen Malawians set out to teach the village farmers the proper installation and use of the systems. Within weeks the famine-starved farmers started setting up cooperative farms with the use of the drip systems. Napoleon Dzombe started touring the farms and persuading the farmers to work together in larger than normal farm plots. The reward would be larger than expected crop returns. Within weeks the otherwise brown countryside of the Malawi dry season began to turn green with growing crops. With success in sight, large numbers of farmers began to sign on to the program. Hope began to enter the villages that had suffered so much from the famine.
In the next twelve months, two and in some cases, three crop harvests were brought in from the drip program farms. Other groups began to follow the pattern and purchase the drip systems for their areas of influence.
Additional systems continue to be purchased and sent to Malawi for installation among the more than 20,000 farmers that are waiting to participate in the successful program. If the program grows large enough perhaps another weather- induced famine will not plague the people of Malawi.
