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Join Us in Planting Seeds for Strong Communities in Zimbabwe

on  July 24, 2019

By distributing meals around the globe, Rise Against Hunger meets the immediate needs of those facing hunger. But, what happens next? Over the past few years, Rise Against Hunger has increased its investment in long-term solutions to hunger and poverty, especially in the area of sustainable agriculture. We recently launched projects in Senegal and Mali, and we’re excited to share about a third new agriculture program in Zimbabwe!Planting Seeds for Strong Communities, in partnership with Adventist Development and Relief Agency Zimbabwe, will establish a sustainable home-grown school feeding program in five schools, providing a safety net for school-age children while stimulating the local agricultural economy in the Gokwe North District.

Rise Against Hunger and ADRA staff meet in Zimbabwe to launch the Planting Seeds for Strong Communities project.
The project will also sustain the gains generated from the Rise Against Hunger-supported Southern Africa School Feeding Initiative, which has provided food assistance following the 2016 El Nino drought. Planting Seeds for Strong Communities will focus on horticulture, indigenous poultry, sunflower, biofortified cowpeas and small grains to strengthen household nutrition and promote women’s empowerment.Each of the five schools will establish or expand school farms to produce food for daily meals and generate income. Parent volunteers will support this initiative by working in shifts on the school farms. Through school production and procurement from sustainable local sources, the project aims to increase the diversity of foods that school students regularly consume.
Eggs and meat from Boschveld chickens, which are an indigenous breed in Zimbabwe, will be added to school meals and sold to generate income to sustain the school meals.
Training for lead and follower farmers will promote climate-smart agricultural approaches and nutrient-rich varieties, like high-iron beans and orange flesh sweet potatoes. At farmer market schools, the farmers will learn business skills, including financial literacy, record keeping and negotiation so they can successfully connect to markets.Are you inspired to support long-term solutions to hunger? Donate today to create brighter futures for generations to come!

About the Author

Maggie is Rise Against Hunger's Director of Marketing and Communications and has been a team member since 2016. Maggie works to spread the word about the mission to end hunger and to engage people globally to take action.

More Posts by Maggie Luckadoo

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.