Growing Healthy Communities: Farmer Participatory Research to Improve Child Nutrition, Food Security, and Soils in Ekwendeni, Malawi

In 1997, a Malawian community nurse and a Canadian soil-science student ­interviewed families whose children were admitted to the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre at Ekwendeni Hospital. They wanted to learn what had led to the severe malnourishment of children in their region in northern Malawi. The stories they heard from the community had a similar refrain – families were no longer able to afford the rising prices of commercial fertilizers.