Wema in her field

Cotton-Farming Film Inspires Up and Coming Farmer

Wema Sikisi is 16 years old, a form two student at Mpilisi Secondary School, and aspiring cotton farmer.  She is the first born in a family of six living with her mother in the town of Kachenga within the Balaka District in southern Malawi.  All of Wema’s siblings are in primary school except the second eldest sister who is already married.  Wema began farming in 2005 because her mother could no longer cover her school fees of roughly K6000 ($45) per year.

In her first year growing cotton, she produced enough to pay fees for two-thirds of the school year.  This year she plans to produce even more cotton of better quality to earn enough income to cover an entire year’s fees.  She is confident she can achieve this because she is receiving training in best agronomic practices from a cotton farming film.  The film is being projected by the two major cotton ginning companies in Malawi in concert with the USAID Malawi SALES Project.  

In November 2005, after viewing the cotton value-chain best practices film in Kachenga in her native language of Chichewa, Wema immediately returned to her field and applied what she learned to one of her plots.  Her two three-quarter acre plots are now a contrast between traditional and more modern cultivation methods just as she saw depicted in the film.  She feels it is just as easy to grow cotton using modern techniques as the old-fashioned way.  Wema’s willingness to innovate caught the eye of one of the ginning company’s extension agents who selected her fields as demonstration plots to stimulate other farmers.  Over 30 other farmers have visited her plots to see for themselves the differences between planting the new and old way.  

Wema can recount the entire story line from the two films she’d been shown: “In High Cotton” and “Agricultural Chemical Safety.”  She identifies with the film’s characters who speak her language and live in rural Malawi.  “I will pick four times in a week this year like Saidi [one of the film’s characters] as this will give me a greater yield.”  She now recognizes the importance of sorting and grading her cotton as highlighted in the film.  Good grading helps to get a good price.  “I also learned that it is extremely important to wear protective clothing while spraying from the “Agricultural Chemical Safety” film.  

Wema expects this year’s quantity and quality to improve greatly.  She is certain that she will not only be able to pay this year’s school fees but also pre-pay for her last year of secondary school.  She will be the first in her family to graduate from secondary school.  She is already planning to increase her plot size for next year since she now knows that she can make a good living from farming.  She will also be able to pay back a loan she received from her mother to get started in cotton.   Wema concludes by stating the obvious, “If it weren’t for the income from cotton I wouldn’t be in school.”