Tiyeni's mission is to end food poverty and to improve water security. We achieve our mission by delivering training to smallholder farmers across in Malawi in our unique form of climate-smart agriculture, Deep Bed Farming. Deep Bed Farming empowers farmers to build self-sustaining livelihoods while also improving the natural environment by improving soil health and promoting biodiversity.
Tiyeni's primary activity is to provide training to smallholder farmers in our climate-smart agriculture, Deep Bed Farming. Deep Bed Farming takes an innovative approach by breaking a compacted layer of soil know as the hardpan. This allows roots and rainwater to penetrate deeper into the soil to nourish the land. Our demand-based training generates socio-economic benefits by empowering communities to produce increased crop yields that can withstand adverse weather conditions. The adoption of Deep Bed Farming simultaneously advances environmental conservation by restoring barren land through regenerative land management, sustainable rainwater harvesting, and improved resilience to climate change.
Unlike many forms of climate-smart agriculture, which take multiple years to deliver tangible outcomes for farmers, Deep Bed Farming generates the following outputs in the first year of adoption:
- 145% increased crop yields- 9x increased profitability- 14% increased food security
As farmers continue to use Deep Bed Farming, their profitability grows to 12x its pre-Deep Bed Farming level in the fifth year, and their food security improves to 46% in the sixth year.
Environmental impacts of Deep Bed Farming include:- 80% reduced water runoff- 50% decreased soil erosion
Techniques such as the transition from synthetic fertiliser to on-site-produced organic manure, agroforestry, crop rotation, and mulching also promote biodiversity and healthy soil microbiomes.
Farmer Quotes and Testimonials
“Crops under Deep Bed Farming were resilient in the floods, to the extent that my crops and beds were not washed away with the flooding. If I had not adopted Deep Bed Farming, I would not have survived the impact of Cyclone Freddy in terms of food. Even though the water was too much, I managed to harvest two and a half bags of maize from the Beds.” - Limited Ligomeka, Komwa village in Thuchila EPA
“Indeed those marker ridges and the raised beds withheld the pressure of water, because I could tell the difference between the [conventional] ridges and the [Deep] Beds. In the [conventional] ridges, soil erosion could be seen, and some ridges were washed away while the Deep Beds remained intact and just needed to be raised to their normal height.” - Lusiwa Mangame, Mangame village in Msikawanjala EPA
