“You have nothing to fear, you can do anything,” she was told by her mother when she was young. At the 9th Annual General Meeting Mrs. Fanny Makina was elected to be the first female chairperson of National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi.

Mrs. Makina will now lead close to 105,000 Malawian smallholder farmers towards a more food secure future. “This is a symbol of entering a new stage when it comes to gender. I hope I can inspire other women to take leadership positions as well,” she says.

Mrs. Makina finished high school and studied at the Central College of Commerce. She is very well-educated for a smallholder farmer. After college, she owned her own shop in Blantyre, the largest city in Malawi. She moved back to her village after her husband died and brought her business skills with her. In addition to selling crops to NASFAM, she is selling mushrooms and vegetables to expensive hotels and grocery stores in some of Malawi’s major cities.

She has also climbed the ladder within NASFAM. Mrs. Makina has always been very involved at the local level. In addition to serving as the chairperson for her local association she also represented the group of associations in her region as the regional chair. She became the first female national board member in 1996, proceeded to secretary, and finally was elected chairperson in 2005. As a board member and secretary, she spoke to politicians, decision makers, international visitors and last, but not least, fellow smallholder farmers all over the country.

“When I travelled around the country to attend meetings, I noticed that most women keep quiet. I want them to talk. If women are not strong and don’t speak their mind, men will take advantage. We are all farmers, we are all dealing with the same challenges, why shouldn’t we all be able to speak in public and take the lead?” she asks.

Mrs. Makina believes many women are shy and afraid of talking in public, because they haven’t gone to school. “I tell them that lack of formal education doesn’t mean that they don’t have the right to make decisions. You can have a lot of opinions about farming issues, even if you don’t know how to write your own name,” she says.

Mrs. Makina knows that being elected as a leader means hard work. “I know it’s a great responsibility. Since the time I was elected, a lot of people have contacted me. They ask me what our organisation can do to help them through the period of hunger. Meeting all these people, reminds me that NASFAM has a very important job to do,” she says.

When Mrs. Makina is not travelling around the country, she is working in her garden. She grows maize, peas, beans, potatoes, peanuts and mushrooms. She knows that being a farmer means hard work.

“In most cases, women work even harder in the fields than men. I think women in general feel more responsibility for the household. While men go to the bar to drink, women work hard in the garden, because they can’t stand to see their kids suffering. A very large share of the agricultural production in this country is done by women; of course we should have a strong voice in our own organisation” she says.

About NASFAM
USAID/Malawi signed an agreement with NASFAM in 2003 to provide $6.3 million in assistance over a three year period. NASFAM is a member owned, democratically governed and non-political organisation providing business services to its smallholder farmer members. NASFAM channels members’ products to local and international markets, providing maximum returns to the smallholder. Through a variety of trainings and communications programmes, the members are equipped with both agricultural and business skills, enabling them to produce and supply better crops and manage their farms in a commercially viable manner. The Association has grown rapidly in the last ten years. In 1995 NASFAM had 2200 members in 14 Associations and today there are over 105,000 members in 43 Associations throughout Malawi.

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