Phalombe agriculture office gets 6 motorbikes

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on Friday donated six motorbikes to Phalombe District Agriculture Development Office with an aim of improving dissemination of Climate Smart Agriculture messages among farmers in the district.

This happened as the organization is implementing a Climate Change Resilience project in the district.

Speaking when receiving the donation, Assistant District Agricultural Development Officer for Phalombe David Alli said his office has high hopes of reaching out to more farmers than before when many of its Extension Workers used push bikes as a means of transport which made it hard for them to serve many farmers.

According to Alli, the few Extension Workers that the office has in the field cover long distances and serve more than the recommended number of farmers hence the need for quick and reliable mobility.

“There has been poor delivery of extension services, including administration of farmer field school lessons on climate change and climate smart agriculture techniques simply because our extension workers had to travel long distances and it was not easy using bicycles,” said Alli.

He added that aside from boosting agriculture extension services in the district, the donation also signified a working partnership that exists between the organization and government through the agriculture sector.

The Honda motorcycles were distributed among Extension Workers working in rural areas of the district.

Commenting on the way the motorcycles were going to assist them, one of the Extension Workers, Joseph Bifolo who works under Tamani Extension Planning Area (EPA) said he was optimistic that the number of farmers that he serves in each day was going to increase.

“With this motorcycle I will be able to reach out to many farmers in a short period, and my expectation is that I will be serving at least 700 farmers in a day as compared to 200 that I used to serve in a day when I was using a bicycle as transport,” explained Bifolo.

He further commended FAO for the modern motorcycles which he said had been a need among them (Extension Workers) for a long time.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a United Nations food security organization and it is implementing a climate change resilience farming project in Phalombe district.