NutriCare Malawi
NutriCare Malawi
Augmenting sustainable agriculture for healthy humans, the environment, and designs for a productive nation.
BCTA MEMBERSHIP STATUS
Active
SECTOR
Agriculture, Food & Beverage
HEADQUARTERS
Malawi
REGION OF INITIATIVE
Africa
SDG CONTRIBUTION
External Articles
The Impact Goal
NutriCare Malawi joined Business Call to Action in December 2020 and made a commitment to provide access to mental health counseling to 400 registered farmers through its portal by 2021; turn 2000 households into food havens through capacity building and turning unused backyards into gardens by 2022; and build an organic food supermarket in the city of Blantyre, where various organic foods sourced from its registered farmers will be sold by 2023.
The Market Gap
Most farms produce on the Malawian market are sun-dried with no value addition hence they lack availability of processed farm produce that is safe, nutrient-rich, and affordable in markets, as well. One example of this is the drying of insects (grasshopper and cricket) often done without good hygienic standards that are then packaged and sold in very large volumes.
NutriCare is working to address, among other things, quality standards on insect drying entities and helping them to diversity their packaging sizes so that more economically vulnerable families can afford to buy this important source of protein that also has a longer shelf life. There is also a knowledge gap between farmers and researchers regarding the processing of insects. If this gap can be addressed, a lot of the rural farmers will be empowered financially.
The Business Solution
NutriCare promotes nutrition-sensitive agribusiness to maximize agriculture contribution to the reduction of malnutrition in the community through a variety of partnerships and capacity development among female farmers through its permaculture model. NutriCare promotes the production and consumption of high nutritious crops such as soy, cow pies, NUA bean, groundnuts, livestock, and micro livestock (insects) which are market-driven to enhance household income, food, and nutrition security.
The processed insect powder is used to fortify orange maize flour and produce nutritious staple porridge meal, Thanzidoo. The novel stiff porridge meal contains all 9 essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Close to 500 thousand sachets of protein powders are sold door to door each year, through a partnership with youth entrepreneurs reaching approximately 20,000 infants aged 6 to 24 months.
It is also an organization with a focus on empowering women farmers with the skills and resources to lift themselves out of food and nutrition insecurities while contributing to their community economy. In Malawi, 70% of farming activities are done by female farmers. NutriCare empowers these women to have a greater ability to make their own decisions, increases their resilience to climate change, provides a greater power over their own lives, and responds to increasing their economic opportunities.