Hello again! I've just had news that I will be moving to Malawi in a few weeks, and to celebrate, I am posting some pictures from my visit in 2006. This is the patchwork of fields of maize and tobacco seen from the landing pattern at Lilongwe airport.


Malawians eat a lot of maize, and grow most of it themselves in family fields along with groundnuts, tobacco, bananas and many other things (below, left). Unfortunately the increase in population is outstripping the increase in food supply.

My research task was to discover if planting gliricidia (the tall shrub on the right) improved the fertility of the soil.