Agricultural Resource Management Group

Lake Malawi National Park is constructed from the chain of agricultural field, forest, human habitats, and use of lake water on land. Water and material cycles from agriculture affect to the forest, human habitats, total area of lake basin, and ecosystem of Lake Malawi. On the other hand, in this area there are challenges to maintain the agricultural productivity utilizing irrigation system and sustainable environment friendly agriculture which minimizes the impact of agriculture on the ecosystem and environment of Lake Malawi for the stable food production in Malawi. Therefore, our research group will assimilate the trend of long-term weather and hydrology and evaluate the potential of water resource such as underground water and surface water for the dry season using a hydrology model. We will investigate the possibility of dry season agriculture production through the improvement of water resources and irrigation. Moreover, we will implement the water-saving irrigation technology such as drip irrigation, improvement of cultivation method and cultivation of cash crop by analysis of water requirement from crop and introducing agroforestry based on the organic matter circulation in a community farm. We aim for the promotion and dissemination of environment friendly farming practices as a case study. In addition, we also aim for the establishment of a production system which ensures the stable production of the aquaculture and crops by practical use of the irrigation system linked to the drainage system of the farming practice and small-scale aquaculture. We expect the improvement of agriculture income through development of agricultural production and supply chain for the community farms including aquaculture facilities. This further can lead to the establishment and operation as well as dissemination of the sustainable environment friendly agriculture management system.

○Hiromu Okazawa・Takashi Kume・Hirotaka Matsuda・Hiroko Gono・Sarvesh Maskey・Zhang Ke・○Lameck Fiwa・Weston Mwase・Phillip Kapulula・Daud Kassam・Neverson Msusa・Patrick Kambewa・Dickson Mazibuko・Kenford Luweya Aeron Banda・Placid Mpeketula