Project Title:  One Family One Fruit Tree

Malawi has high prevalence of malnutrition due to micronutrient deficiency, especially among under-5 children and those under 10 years of age.  Little has unchanged despite various initiatives that government has undertaken over the past years. The other critical major micronutrient deficiency is nutritional anaemia with prevalence rate of 80 percent in preschool children, 47% among pregnant women and 58% in school- age children.  

Factors associated with the high levels of malnutrition are multiple and interrelated including, inadequate quality and diversity in the diet; limited access to food; institutional and capacity constraints for effective nutrition programmes and service delivery; and inadequate knowledge and skills for adoption of optimal nutrition practises at household level, mainly due to a lack of resources for community based nutrition education programmes.

Under Theme 1 of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF): Sustainable economic development and food security, and subscribing to increased agricultural productivity at household level and enhanced conservation of natural resource base, Cluster1 proposes to implement a project that will promote diet diversification, through fruit production and utilisation at household to improve nutritional health of household members. The project will demonstrate approaches that can reduce the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies and associated diseases in communities through application of basic food security interventions.

Objectives of the project are to:

• improve household nutrition,
• increase income earnings of rural poor households
• environmental conservation and positive social relationship among farmers.
• improve rural livelihoods

Implementation Strategy

The proposed project will cover 20,000 households, in Machinga ADD covering Balaka, Machinga and Mangochi districts and 25, 000 in Kasungu ADD covering Kasungu and Mzimba districts.  Each household will be provided with one fruit tree of their choice to plant near a water drainage site on the homestead, to encourage inclusion of fruit in the diet to reduce micronutrient deficiency which affects child development and health. The project will work with community leaders through existing agricultural extension structures. Extension staff will work in partnership with the nutrition subject matter specialists within the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to sensitise, and initiate the “one household one fruit tree” campaign in the selected EPAs.  After distribution and planting, the extension staff will monitor the management of the trees by the households, by following up and encouraging households to take good care of the seedlings up to bearing stage. The project will have an understanding with the beneficiary that the beneficiary would pay back to the project the full cost of the fruit tree seedling if it dies due to negligence.

Expected outputs

1. Awareness of the importance of fruits in household diet and family health created among policy makers, service providers and farmers. The project will embark on a sensitization campaign among policy workers and service provides on the importance of the initiative promoting fruit production at household level for healthy nutrition
2. Household nutritional quality improved.  Most rural households in Malawi do not have fruit trees of their own.  Planting fruit trees on the homestead would ensure  households have ready access to fruit which can be harvested for their families.  This would broaden the family food basket thereby improving the quality of food consumed.
3. Household income increased.  Excess fruit would be sold within the community to earn income that would be used to meet household needs. 
4. Natural Environment improved as the fruit tree develops into a mature tree. It will provide shed and reduce impact of rain drops thereby minimising runoff. It will also contribute to reversing climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide. It is also envisaged that once farmers realise the benefits of owning a fruit tree on the home stead, there will be demand for more trees. 
5. Social cohesion of a community strengthened.  Households owning different types of fruit trees in a community would exchange or buy fruit within the community thereby cementing social relationship between households.