TRANSFORMING LIVES THROUGH THE SUSTAINABLE COTTON PROJECT
“I never thought I would own a decent house in my life. Life has been challenging. But I see a bright future ahead.”
These are the words of Memory Mwanza, a smallholder cotton farmer located in Mangochi district, in the eastern part of Malawi.
Being an ardent maize farmer for most of her life, she decided to try growing cotton in the 2017/18 growing season. “Maybe cotton can transform my life,” she thought. However, things did not turn out the way she wished. Memory didn’t get a penny from her cotton field as she didn’t have enough information and she did not produce the expected yield.
She despaired for the time, money, and energy she had invested in the failed cotton field. She thought this was the worst decision a 40-year-old woman could have ever made. “At least I could have gotten something from Maize” she thought.
