What We Do
Updated Dec 2025
Since 2016, Nkope Village, located on the shores of Lake Malawi, the ninth largest lake in the world, has been at the center of Harvest Malawi’s work to address food insecurity, climate vulnerability, and limited economic opportunity. The challenges faced in Nkope are representative of many rural communities across Malawi, where low agricultural productivity, increasingly erratic weather, and dry-season water scarcity continue to threaten household nutrition and livelihoods. At the same time, Malawi has immense potential, including fertile land, access to fresh water, and a growing population eager for practical, sustainable solutions.
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Harvest Malawi works alongside local communities to strengthen food security and livelihoods through agroecology, permaculture-based training, and market-linked agriculture. Our approach focuses on building local capacity so households can reliably grow food, generate income, and adapt to climate stress long after outside support ends. Sustainability is central to our work, and donor support allows us to invest in infrastructure, training, and enterprise pilots that directly benefit families year after year.
We partner closely with the UK-based NGO Naturally Africa Volunteers, whose Malawian-led team provides day-to-day project management and deep community engagement. Together, we operate from land neighboring Lake Malawi and the Thiwi Education Centre in Mangochi District. Naturally Africa Volunteers’ long-standing work in education, health, nutrition, and livelihoods ensures agriculture programming is integrated with preschool feeding, school garden clubs, and home-based care. Harvest Malawi provides strategic direction, technical agriculture expertise, and project funding, while Naturally Africa Volunteers ensures local leadership and implementation.
With strong community participation, the agriculture program has evolved from early demonstration plots into productive systems that support both nutrition and income. Crops include tomatoes, onions, eggplant, peppers, okra, pumpkin, cabbage, bananas, papaya, mango, lemon, and guava, alongside diversified household gardens. In recent years, lake flooding, cyclones, and drought stress have required the project to adapt by prioritizing resilient crop mixes, composting, water-saving irrigation methods, and integrated pest management. Produce supports both local sales and school feeding, improving food availability during the dry season.
In parallel, Harvest Malawi has expanded small-scale enterprise pilots that create income opportunities, particularly for women and youth. These include oyster mushroom production, hot pepper cultivation in recycled grow bags, fuel-efficient clay stoves, tree seedling sales, and livestock initiatives such as pig rearing. Each enterprise is designed to be affordable, replicable, and responsive to local and regional demand.
Water access and irrigation remain foundational to the program’s success. Solar-powered pumping systems, gravity-fed water storage, and drip irrigation infrastructure have been installed, maintained, and repaired over time to ensure reliable water access. Recent investments have focused on strengthening infrastructure resilience following storm damage, restoring priority drip lines, expanding nursery capacity, and completing demonstration homesteads so training translates into production on the ground.
Training and inclusion are at the core of our work. Permaculture and agroecology courses support households across Nkope, Tukululu, and Liganga, combining hands-on learning with follow-up mentoring and starter materials. Thousands of vegetable and tree seedlings are raised annually and distributed to households and schools. Women’s groups and youth participants are intentionally integrated into enterprise development so economic benefits are shared widely across the community.
Looking ahead, Harvest Malawi is transitioning toward a demand-led AgriHub model anchored at the Mangochi centre with village-based spokes. This approach aligns crop planning with buyer demand, aggregates harvests, and supplies lakeshore lodges and hotels that currently import much of their fresh produce. By replacing imports with dependable local supply, the project aims to keep value within the community, create dignified employment, and build a resilient, locally driven food system.
We are proud of the progress made and remain committed to growing, adapting, and learning alongside the communities we serve. With continued partnership and support, Harvest Malawi is helping Nkope Village and neighboring communities build a future of improved nutrition, stable incomes, and climate-resilient agriculture.