In 2020 and 2021, we have built upon existing work in Malawi and Mozambique. In Malawi, where PICSA has now been used with farmers since 2015, we have supported further trainings for extension workers prior to the 2020-21 and 2021-22 growing seasons. Most recently, Peter Dorward remotely led a training workshop for 30 new national level experts in Malawi, as part of the UNDP-led MCLIMES project in Malawi. Peter subsequently led a ‘refresher’ training for intermediaries who had been trained as PICSA experts in previous years. These experts will go on to roll-out PICSA training in 4 new districts, as well as further training in 10 existing districts of Malawi, in partnership with DAES, DCCMS and NASFAM. This roll-out in Malawi will, for the first time, involve peer-to-peer PICSA training through lead farmers training their farmer groups. To support this, we have developed a ‘lead farmer guide’, which offers a simple, visual reference to help lead farmers facilitate each step of PICSA with farmer groups. This offers an exciting opportunity to test a new model of PICSA training, which could help scale out PICSA training to many thousands more farmers in the future.
At the same time as these trainings were ongoing in Malawi, Sam Poskitt was facilitating an expert training for 34 new and existing experts in Mozambique. In what is now the third year of our partnerships with World Food Programme in Mozambique, these trained experts will roll-out PICSA training to farmers in 3 existing districts, plus 4 new ones, in Gaza and Tete provinces. Additionally, we have added 3 districts in a new province, Sofala. We are delighted to continue building on our relationships with World Food Programme, INAM and MADER, and to consolidate the promising work on PICSA in Mozambique.