Land access to widows and divorced women

Problem 

Lack of enough land to cultivate for widows and divorced women which leads to Pervasive food insecurity and chronic food shortage in their household.

Solution

ADNET has brought an initiative in supporting these categories of people to be engaged into Agriculture activities even from scratch by providing a revolving loan for leasing or owning a Land and Agriculture inputs.

The beneficiaries are asked to seek for a land which they would want to lease or own. ADNET pay the land owner(Landlord)on behalf of the beneficiaries just to avoid the beneficiary mismanaging the funds. The ADNET collect the loan in form of monetary or commodities from the beneficiaries of this project and continue with the new recruits.by that  ADNET assumes the beneficiary has been left with capacity to own or lease a suitable land by herself.

Pervasive food insecurity and chronic food shortage to widows, divorced and the youth due to insufficient land for farming.70% of  smallholder farmers in Malawi own less than a hectare land, and they devote 70% of the land to grow Maize, a staple food which is not enough for their survival. While estates and commercial farmers own or lease10 - 500 hectares of land . Women frequently inherit nothing when a marriage ends, and official legal systems offer little resources.

10% African women above the age of 14 is widowed, and 6% percent are divorced.  Malawi according to marriage patrinial practices the wife depends on the land of the husband clan, when a husband dies the properties are shared with the wife, children and relatives.and mostly the woman is being left at a disadvantaged side.worse still when the family was a poor family ,the woman inherit nothing.when there is a divorce the woman is sent back to her home where she finds every land occupied by brothers.

The land problem contributes to low Maize productivity trap of theses widowed and divorced women to cultivate Maize even when it is not efficient for them, which leads to starvation every year.

The widows and divorced women will be supported with loan to lease land of their choice, some will be supported with inputs.by following the following steps we will achieve the project objectives:

1. The widowed/divorced will be asked to seek for land of their choice

2. ADNET gives money to the landlord on their behalf

3. Agriculture Extension officer of ADNET will be guiding farmers in proper ways of farming their crops to harvest satisfying yields 

4. ADNET will assist these women with a loan to lease 1 Hectare land each.

5.ADNET will allow these women to only grow food crops, Which is Maize, a staple food in Malawi.

6. The Organisation will also assist these women loan of certified Mazie seed and Fertilizer.

7.ADNET through extension worker collects 15% interest/year of half of the assisted money from the beneficiary.

8. Every year ADNET will recruit some more 10 Women to be beneficiaries of the project depending on the previous women capacity to pay back the money.

Target Population

I am working with rural community women , only those who are widowed and divorced in Lilongwe district, Mitundu area.30 women( 15 widowed and 15 divorced)will be reached in this pilot phase.

Understanding needs

For two years i have been interacting with such people to understand their challenge/needs by asking them why every year they have a food shortage.most response i got from these women is that they don't have land for farming and their survival is entirely depending on piece works, unfortunately these women have children who needs their support.

Engangement

The widowed and divorced women mostly have been asked if they need to come out of their poverty line and what solution would they require,  most of the response i got were:

1. To be assisted to acquire enough land for farming

2.To be assisted with farm inputs i.e Fertilizer

3.To be assisted with capital to start business 

Our organisation ADNET have picked the first two solutions which will solve their basic needs of food shortage.

Malawi is one of the poorest country, 75% of the population live below poverty line. Food shortage is the biggest challenge due to lack of enough land and inputs. The most vulnerable people are divorced and widowed women who have little or no access to land due to their social economic status after the death of their husband or divorce.

ADNET solution will bring the following impact:

1. Lease or buy a land on their own when the project phases out

2. Improve their social economic status 

3. Solve the problem of hunger

4. Improve women and children's nutrition status  

Our solution is innovative in the sense that most of the Agriculture input suppliers they focus on seeds and Fertilizer,  but our solution involves land as well, so that those with limited land can can lease some more land and produce more.

I am also working with widows and divorced women, its a new approach, i have never heard any organisation working with that category of vulnerable , yet they are the most suffered people in the society.

As time goes , we plan to include a loan package of setting up irrigation systems to the farms of these vulnerable people so that they can have year round harvest.

The harvests in these farms the ADNET will connect to a good markets and the payments to pass through ADNET account and after deducting the loan it will be given to the farmer. the loan to be duducted includes of irrigation equipment and operating capital.  The loan can be payed in two to 3 years.

This system is being used by FISD LIMITED COMPANY,  under FIFAD project.  A company which i would love to partner as well. They install irrigation systems to small scale and mediam scale farmers at loan and hire extension officer to work with those farmers. When the farmer harvest FISD company links the farmer to the buyer but the money passes through FISD, they deduct a portion of their money and later give to the farmer according to the agreement. More details can be found on http://www.fisdltd.com/fifad/

3 out of 10 women in Malawi are either divorced or widowed.

80% of them have no or little land for farming and no inputs. 

Activities of the Project

1. Loan to lease a land for farming 

2. Loan for farm inputs 

3. Paying back in either commodity or monetary 

Outcomes

1. Reduced hunger to most vulnerable communities 

2. Reduced poverty with improved income level

3.improved infant malnutrition and stunted growth

Long term outcome

1.zero hunger

2.No poverty

3. Improved Healthy status

4. No depression 

our organisation started with one woman, we hope when we win this prize we will support 30 women the first year,after 5 years we would like to be serving atleast 1000 women with our solution of providing loan for land lease/buying , as well as Agriculture inputs. 

Our target is to reach to the most vulnerable women in our societies who have difficulties in farming enough land.

We will also go further to assist refugees and other displaced people with the same package so that they can also benefit from these initiative.

our Organisation plan to reach out to as many as possible including the youth, because the youth  are denied access to land for farming, they are mostly considered as part of the family. In Malawi its only the elders who own land to cultivate. The youth are also not considered in any Government input subsidy. In future my project will also go to the youth to help them access loan to lease or buy land as well as farm inputs

ADNET is also interested to reach out to the refugees and displaced people in future. For we know these people they are in a strange country but they can not be denied of the right to do farming activities , by doing so their lives will improve and become self reliant than being dependant.

Our vision is to reach to millions of people in 10 years to come, which will have an impact of zero hunger as united Nation sustainable development goal. We plan to partner with other NGO's like WFP, save the Children, Christian Aid, UNICEF, and other institutions.

The following are the challenges currently being faced.

1. Lack of enough capital to reach out to many women with our solution i.e procuring farm inputs and money to lease land

2. Transportation to reach to many villages as possible,  the NGO is just young in the industry. We haven't secured any vehicle but we just use our passion and reach out to people since its a social enterprise.

3. Some villages they don't abide to the law of title deed of land, they may end up selling the land you already bought or lease.

4.Fear of other beneficiaries not to pay back the loan they obtained from ADNET  to lease a land and farm inputs 

1. The issue of capital will be solved by looking for financial institutions like development banks which can give us loan to do this business. Apart from that other companies which sells and give loans of Agriculture inouts to partner with them to provide the same with our beneficiaries. We will also be seeking for grants.

2. When our organisation makes profit, we will buy two Motorcycle and 3 Tonnes truck  for transportation of the inputs to our beneficiaries  

3. The issue of land will be sorted out by having our own legal lawyer who will be involved to solve any misunderstanding we may encounter with land owners

4. The fear of beneficiaries not to pay back loan will be solved by involving our extension officer who will make sure these women are well taking care of their crops for bumper yields, once they harvest we will immediately ask them to give us a portion of the harvest as part of payment or in money. It will be an agreement that we will use that model just to safeguard our resources.

The group comprise of 3 teams, my self the CEO, and other two junior staffs. We hope to recruit others as we go along.

3 of us  are graduates from Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) with bachelors science degree of Agriculture,  Aquaculture and Fisheries science , and Food Nutrition.

My self (the CEO) when i was doing my tertiary education in 2016, i used to go to a certain village around school community. There a certain woman approached by explaining her situation that she divorced, she doesn't have land for farming because all her brothers and sisters sold the land that they were supposed to share in their clan. As the time passes i discovered that there are many people of that category.that was the beginning of ADNET social Enterprise organisation. 

I started to help this woman in form of charity, i could gave her money to start Tomato business and she was doing well, she expanded it and i became motivated. So i worked with her for one year of 2017 to 2018.

currently we are not working with any organisation but we hope to partner with a number of them  in future

The problem of land and lack of Agriculture inputs to vulnerable people ,in this case divorced and widows who are my target customers.

The money that will be assisted will not fall into their hands but rather to the land owner whom they want to lease the land. Inputs like fertilzer and Maize will be bought and they will collect at the office.

Value proposition for this business is that they will be allowed to pay the loan in installment for two years while most of the micro loan institions can not do.

No need for collateral for one to obtain help of this project. We are looking for the most vulnerable and poor women who is either a widow or divorced. 

We will work with other partners who are interested to support women who are involved into agriculture practices i.e WFP and care

The main reason is to bring a last solution to food shortage contributed to most vulnerable women in our society. this saves our country to move from poverty line. We have applied for solve because of the grant offered, as well as the direction which they are interested to support. I believe when we get the Fund from solve our community with women that widows and divorced will be helped with Agriculture activities ,hence earn their living.

We would love to partner in the following categories

1. Agriculture input supply

2. Lawyers to give title deed and solve any dispute

3. Capacity building of our beneficiaries

4. Irrigation Technology advancement

5. Entreprenuership trainings 

we would love to partner with the following organisations;

1. Solve members with grants and technical support

2.WFP ,their support in collaborating with groups of farmers and cash transfer 

3. Save the Children

4. Care

5. FISD on technical support for loan management of farm inputs

6. Government

7. Lawyers 

8. Financial institutions to provide loans 

Refugees are one of the people who don't have ownership of the property in the country they migrated to. Our solution as ADNET will also meet their needs so that they start farming activities as well.

When we got the funds that prize  will extend our project to reach refugee camp and in other locations where there are refugees by giving the loan of leasing a land and getting farm inputs.

Apart from Agriculture venture , we will support the refugees with entreprenurship program by training them about entreprenuership, they will further allowed to venture into business of their choice while under the coaching of our staff members.

we will introduce irrigation technology and Aquaculture venture to the groups of women (cooperatives). In Aquaculture we will use Recirculating Aquaculture systems (RAS) where water revolves in the system . The system can be used at a place where there is insufficient water, because the same water quantity in the tanks goes out and comes in after passing through treatment systems.

This system of RAS produces alot of fish than using stagnant Water.

By this we will reach many Women who are divorced and widowed , including the youth.

We plan to train our beneficiaries about entreprenuership so that they can be business oriented and start investing on their own. We will be welcoming new ideas which these women may have related to business and give them a start up capital as part of the prize for their briliant idea,

In future we plan to set up a feed making Machine for floating feed of fish. These feed will be given to Aquaculture small scale women farmers on credit to those who can not manage. In Malawi quality fish feed is the biggest problem. This country we don't have any industry which manufacture floating feed for fish, we rely on imported feed from Zambia, unfortunately Zambian  government has banned exportation of livestock feed due to lack of law materials.