Currently Planet Aid, Inc. operates Farmers Club programs in Mozambique and Malawi through a partnership with the USDA and in-country implementing partners ADPP Mozambique and DAPP Malawi.
The Farmers Club is a 5 year program where the first 3 years focus on training the farmers in basic knowledge about sustainable farming and the last 2 years concentrate on cash crop production and effective ways of processing the produce.
Farmers Clubs aim at improving food security. The projects work towards finding long term solutions to food shortages and dependency. The solutions can be found on the grassroots level, with the farmers organizing themselves to become the driving force in improving their lives, with increased agricultural output and better market prices as a result.
The function of the program is to help subsistence level farmers in rural communities learn the skills necessary for them to become small-scale commercial farmers, providing both food security and a steady stream of income to their families. This is accomplished through education, organization, and mobilization. In the program participants learn to practice more efficient agricultural techniques, create market linkages and support one another.
Over the course of three years, Farmers Clubs build the capacity of people to create sustainable development – creating a secure source of food and income for themselves and their families. Once the program ends, the people will have the capacity to organize further Clubs on their own, passing the skills and capacity they have built up to their neighbors.
To learn more about Farmer's Clubs, please click here.
