Description

Abstract: The focus of this project is to build a Bridgewater State College and World Relief team that will acquire needed geographic information (GI) for use in a geographic information system (GIS) relief work planning in crop cultivation, irrigation and agribusiness. World Relief Malawi (WRM) has been actively involved in supporting economic development projects with over 400 poor households in the Mzimba area (northern Malawi) with the focus on enabling farming families to escape poverty through increased agricultural production of high market value crops and livestock, higher market sales, and value added processing, with the Goal of higher levels of wealth, better food security and improved nutrition. Interventions include promotion of high-valued and vegetable crop production, irrigation farming and agribusiness initiatives. The target beneficiaries for projects are orphan support families, care givers, people living with HIV/AIDS and ministry team members/care givers. The main deliverable or outcome of the project is a GI database and the training in GIS that will enable farmers and relief workers to identify and prioritize areas for ongoing and new project attention and implementation and thus improve efficiency and success of relief work in Mzimba. Paper presented at Association of American Geographers session, 2011.