Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Questions about our work? You’ve come to the right place!
General
What does “Tiyeni” mean?
Tiyeni means “Let’s Go!” in Chichewa, Malawi’s most widely spoken language. Or you could say “Let’s get on with it!”
What does Tiyeni do?
Tiyeni’s mission is to end food poverty and to improve water security by delivering training to smallholder farmers in our innovative form of climate-smart agriculture, Deep Bed Farming.
When was Tiyeni formed?
Tiyeni was officially formed in 2005, but our history reaches back to the years of poor harvests from the mid- to late-1990s, when Malawi’s maize production fell far below the ~2 million tonnes required to feed the population at the time. Learn more about our history here.
Tiyeni means “Let’s Go!” in Chichewa, Malawi’s most widely spoken language. Or you could say “Let’s get on with it!”
What does Tiyeni do?
Tiyeni’s mission is to end food poverty and to improve water security by delivering training to smallholder farmers in our innovative form of climate-smart agriculture, Deep Bed Farming.
When was Tiyeni formed?
Tiyeni was officially formed in 2005, but our history reaches back to the years of poor harvests from the mid- to late-1990s, when Malawi’s maize production fell far below the ~2 million tonnes required to feed the population at the time. Learn more about our history here.
What needs does Tiyeni’s work address?
Tiyeni’s work addresses Malawi’s high levels of poverty, its degraded natural environment, and climate change, which are strongly interlinked. Delivering training and support in Deep Bed Farming empowers farmers to build self-sustaining livelihoods that improve their crop yields and income while regenerating the land and building resilience to extreme weather events like floods and drought.
Who benefits from Tiyeni’s work?
The primary beneficiaries of Tiyeni’s work are rural communities of smallholder farmers across Malawi. We are also proud of our collaborative partnerships, which provide mutual benefits to the organisations involved and the wider communities that partner organisations serve.
What is the impact of Tiyeni’s work?
Farmers who adopt Deep Bed Farming harvest crop yields that are an average of 2.5x higher in the first year alone, which they continue to benefit from year after year! Farmers and their families also achieve improved profitability, food security, and nutrition. Deep Bed Farming also benefits the natural environment by regenerating the soil, reducing soil erosion and water runoff, and recharging aquifer levels. Learn more about our impacts here.
If Tiyeni’s Deep Bed Farming method is so great, why isn’t everyone doing it?
Farmers and others who have seen Deep Bed Farming in action describe Tiyeni’s methods as “plain common sense”. In fact, Deep Bed Farming has proven so successful that in 2021 the Malawian Ministry of Agriculture adopted our method as an officially approved agricultural method and is heavily promoting its adoption to farmers across the country. (Read more about this milestone in Tiyeni’s history and its implications for our work here.) However, a farmer cannot simply adopt a new method without the proper information and support. This is where Tiyeni comes in. Our team provide the expertise, training, and support to empower farmers to build self-sustaining livelihoods with our transformational farming method.
Tiyeni’s work addresses Malawi’s high levels of poverty, its degraded natural environment, and climate change, which are strongly interlinked. Delivering training and support in Deep Bed Farming empowers farmers to build self-sustaining livelihoods that improve their crop yields and income while regenerating the land and building resilience to extreme weather events like floods and drought.
Who benefits from Tiyeni’s work?
The primary beneficiaries of Tiyeni’s work are rural communities of smallholder farmers across Malawi. We are also proud of our collaborative partnerships, which provide mutual benefits to the organisations involved and the wider communities that partner organisations serve.
What is the impact of Tiyeni’s work?
Farmers who adopt Deep Bed Farming harvest crop yields that are an average of 2.5x higher in the first year alone, which they continue to benefit from year after year! Farmers and their families also achieve improved profitability, food security, and nutrition. Deep Bed Farming also benefits the natural environment by regenerating the soil, reducing soil erosion and water runoff, and recharging aquifer levels. Learn more about our impacts here.
If Tiyeni’s Deep Bed Farming method is so great, why isn’t everyone doing it?
Farmers and others who have seen Deep Bed Farming in action describe Tiyeni’s methods as “plain common sense”. In fact, Deep Bed Farming has proven so successful that in 2021 the Malawian Ministry of Agriculture adopted our method as an officially approved agricultural method and is heavily promoting its adoption to farmers across the country. (Read more about this milestone in Tiyeni’s history and its implications for our work here.) However, a farmer cannot simply adopt a new method without the proper information and support. This is where Tiyeni comes in. Our team provide the expertise, training, and support to empower farmers to build self-sustaining livelihoods with our transformational farming method.
Deep Bed Farming
What is Deep Bed Farming?
Deep Bed Farming is an innovative form of climate-smart agriculture developed by Tiyeni that more than doubles crops in the first year of adoption. Climate-smart agriculture is a category of farming methods that simultaneously focus on improving communities’ food and water security and tackling climate change by regenerating the natural environment. Learn more about Deep Bed Farming here.
What makes Deep Bed Farming unique?
Deep Bed Farming incorporates many practices that are common throughout climate-smart agriculture methods, such as intercropping, organic manure, and agroforestry. However, our method stands apart from other approaches by taking the vital first step of breaking a man-made compacted layer of soil known as the “hardpan” that prevents roots, water, and air from adequately penetrating into the soil. The Deep Beds themselves are also specifically designed to prevent footfall that would otherwise cause soil to become re-compacted. These beds are also designed to capture rainfall, rather than letting the water run off the land and take vital soil with it.
How was Deep Bed Farming developed?
Deep Bed Farming has been developed over 20+ years in response to decades of research by soil scientists and smallholder farmers. This evidence-based method originated to meet Malawi’s need for a sustainable farming technology that could reliably feed farmers and their families even in the face of adverse weather such as extended droughts. Discover more about the seeds of Tiyeni and Deep Bed Farming here.
What research is there behind Deep Bed Farming?
Deep Bed Farming is an evidence-based method originally developed in response to agronomist Francis Shaxson’s 1999 study that identified Malawi’s compacted soil “hardpan” (then called “hoe pan”) as one of the major challenges to agriculture in Malawi. Since then, there has been an ongoing research on Deep Bed Farming, including regular internal monitoring and reports, independent external evaluations, and publications. You can find all of these on our Research page here.
Deep Bed Farming is an innovative form of climate-smart agriculture developed by Tiyeni that more than doubles crops in the first year of adoption. Climate-smart agriculture is a category of farming methods that simultaneously focus on improving communities’ food and water security and tackling climate change by regenerating the natural environment. Learn more about Deep Bed Farming here.
What makes Deep Bed Farming unique?
Deep Bed Farming incorporates many practices that are common throughout climate-smart agriculture methods, such as intercropping, organic manure, and agroforestry. However, our method stands apart from other approaches by taking the vital first step of breaking a man-made compacted layer of soil known as the “hardpan” that prevents roots, water, and air from adequately penetrating into the soil. The Deep Beds themselves are also specifically designed to prevent footfall that would otherwise cause soil to become re-compacted. These beds are also designed to capture rainfall, rather than letting the water run off the land and take vital soil with it.
How was Deep Bed Farming developed?
Deep Bed Farming has been developed over 20+ years in response to decades of research by soil scientists and smallholder farmers. This evidence-based method originated to meet Malawi’s need for a sustainable farming technology that could reliably feed farmers and their families even in the face of adverse weather such as extended droughts. Discover more about the seeds of Tiyeni and Deep Bed Farming here.
What research is there behind Deep Bed Farming?
Deep Bed Farming is an evidence-based method originally developed in response to agronomist Francis Shaxson’s 1999 study that identified Malawi’s compacted soil “hardpan” (then called “hoe pan”) as one of the major challenges to agriculture in Malawi. Since then, there has been an ongoing research on Deep Bed Farming, including regular internal monitoring and reports, independent external evaluations, and publications. You can find all of these on our Research page here.
Farmer training
Who delivers projects and provides training to farmers?
All projects and training are delivered by our all-Malawian in-country team. Tiyeni provides training to farmers in groups and across communities using our decentralised demonstration garden approach, which you can learn more about here. This work is delivered predominantly by our Field Officers, with support from the Management Team. Get to know our team members here.
Why does Tiyeni only train farmers on demand?
Training farmers in response to demand rather than through inputs and incentives has two main advantages. First, this approach safeguards communities’ autonomy, a core principle underlying Tiyeni’s ethos. Second, demand-based training demonstrates higher retention rates of newly-introduced farming methods when organisations complete their work within a community, contributing to Tiyeni’s sustainable exit strategy.
If Tiyeni doesn’t provide inputs or incentives, how is farmer demand generated?
Deep Bed Farming produces such powerful and immediate effects that it easily generates its own demand! A substantial amount of demand is generated as farmers who use conventional agriculture observe the successes of their peers using Deep Bed Farming. We also host Field Days at local, regional, and national levels every year at harvest time to showcase Deep Bed Farming to a wider range of farmers, other NGOs, and government officials. Demand is so high that Tiyeni is currently unable to respond to all requests for training!
What if farmers don’t want to adopt Deep Bed Farming?
In line with our demand-based model, Tiyeni does not push farmers to adopt Deep Bed Farming. We respect farmers’ choices, which are a driving force for our ethos.
Does Tiyeni only work in Malawi?
Yes, we currently only work in Malawi, where we have a presence in all three of the country’s regions. However, Deep Bed Farming is readily applicable to many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa in other parts of the world. Our long-term aim is spread Deep Bed Farming as far as possible to widen its impact on ending food poverty, improving food security, and regenerating the natural environment. However we need more funding and international partnerships to achieve this.
All projects and training are delivered by our all-Malawian in-country team. Tiyeni provides training to farmers in groups and across communities using our decentralised demonstration garden approach, which you can learn more about here. This work is delivered predominantly by our Field Officers, with support from the Management Team. Get to know our team members here.
Why does Tiyeni only train farmers on demand?
Training farmers in response to demand rather than through inputs and incentives has two main advantages. First, this approach safeguards communities’ autonomy, a core principle underlying Tiyeni’s ethos. Second, demand-based training demonstrates higher retention rates of newly-introduced farming methods when organisations complete their work within a community, contributing to Tiyeni’s sustainable exit strategy.
If Tiyeni doesn’t provide inputs or incentives, how is farmer demand generated?
Deep Bed Farming produces such powerful and immediate effects that it easily generates its own demand! A substantial amount of demand is generated as farmers who use conventional agriculture observe the successes of their peers using Deep Bed Farming. We also host Field Days at local, regional, and national levels every year at harvest time to showcase Deep Bed Farming to a wider range of farmers, other NGOs, and government officials. Demand is so high that Tiyeni is currently unable to respond to all requests for training!
What if farmers don’t want to adopt Deep Bed Farming?
In line with our demand-based model, Tiyeni does not push farmers to adopt Deep Bed Farming. We respect farmers’ choices, which are a driving force for our ethos.
Does Tiyeni only work in Malawi?
Yes, we currently only work in Malawi, where we have a presence in all three of the country’s regions. However, Deep Bed Farming is readily applicable to many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa in other parts of the world. Our long-term aim is spread Deep Bed Farming as far as possible to widen its impact on ending food poverty, improving food security, and regenerating the natural environment. However we need more funding and international partnerships to achieve this.
Getting involved |
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How can I support Tiyeni’s work?
There are many ways to support our work! You can help us boost our reach by following us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube (which you can navigate to using the icons above), or by subscribing to our newsletter. Donations also help us respond to the exponential growth in farmer requests for training. We also welcome volunteers. For volunteering within Malawi, please contact our Office Assistant, Prisca, at [email protected]. For all other volunteering enquiries, please contact [email protected].
How can I donate to Tiyeni?
You can easily donate to us on our Donate page. You can also find other ways to support our work here. For any further enquiries, please contact our Fundraising Manager, Rosa Balliro, at [email protected].
How are my donations to Tiyeni used?
You support goes towards our core activity of training farmers in Deep Bed Farming. Donations by supporters like you help fund our work to lift a farmer, a family, or a community out of poverty by training them for life. This work could be specialised Lead Farmer training, gender mainstreaming activities to empower women, or a field event to spread knowledge to an entire village.
A vital part is spent on operational costs, including investing in training for our staff. Our training team are at the heart of our success. The bigger the team, the more communities we can reach. Our UK expenditure is kept to a minimum in order to channel funds to where they are most impactful: in Malawi.
There are many ways to support our work! You can help us boost our reach by following us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube (which you can navigate to using the icons above), or by subscribing to our newsletter. Donations also help us respond to the exponential growth in farmer requests for training. We also welcome volunteers. For volunteering within Malawi, please contact our Office Assistant, Prisca, at [email protected]. For all other volunteering enquiries, please contact [email protected].
How can I donate to Tiyeni?
You can easily donate to us on our Donate page. You can also find other ways to support our work here. For any further enquiries, please contact our Fundraising Manager, Rosa Balliro, at [email protected].
How are my donations to Tiyeni used?
You support goes towards our core activity of training farmers in Deep Bed Farming. Donations by supporters like you help fund our work to lift a farmer, a family, or a community out of poverty by training them for life. This work could be specialised Lead Farmer training, gender mainstreaming activities to empower women, or a field event to spread knowledge to an entire village.
A vital part is spent on operational costs, including investing in training for our staff. Our training team are at the heart of our success. The bigger the team, the more communities we can reach. Our UK expenditure is kept to a minimum in order to channel funds to where they are most impactful: in Malawi.