By Vincent Makiyi, executive director, Agri Impact Malawi (GLFx Dowa)
In the village of Mnongwa, near the Malawian capital, Lilongwe, a quiet agricultural revolution is taking root, led by women and youth determined to preserve their heritage while securing the future.
This transformation draws strength from community bonds and ancestral wisdom as villagers work to reclaim food sovereignty and strengthen environmental resilience.
At the heart of this revival is the Seed Keeper Circle – a grassroots initiative launched in 2021 by Agri Impact Malawi, a nonprofit creating sustainable food systems to boost food security and economic growth.
Born from community dialogues where local farmers voiced their urgent need to regain control over seed systems dominated by costly, less resilient hybrid varieties, the Seed Keeper Circle empowers women and youth to cultivate and preserve indigenous seeds using traditional knowledge, agroecology and community-led governance.
For decades, farmers across Malawi gradually abandoned indigenous seeds in favor of hybrid and imported varieties. This shift was driven by government input subsidy programs and donor-supported agricultural modernization, promising higher yields.
Yet these hybrid seeds often came with hidden costs. They required chemical fertilizers and pesticides, making farmers dependent on expensive external inputs.
Many seed varieties were non-reproducible, forcing farmers to buy new seeds every season instead of saving their own. Hybrid seeds were also often poorly adapted to local ecological conditions, making them vulnerable to climate variability, pests and degraded soils.
As a result, traditional seed varieties, rich in nutrients and deeply woven into cultural practices, were pushed aside, contributing to the loss of biodiversity and Indigenous knowledge.
“When I plant nandolo (pigeon peas), I feel connected to my grandmother,” says Gladys Foliamu, a revered elder and lead seed custodian, her eyes reflecting the depth of her words.
“It’s more than food – it’s history in the soil, a bond with the past that nourishes our present and will sustain future generations.”
Indigenous seeds, in contrast, offer resilience and sustainability. They are naturally adapted to local drought-tolerant microclimates and can be saved and shared season after season without synthetic inputs.
These seeds hold immense cultural, medicinal, and nutritional value. Varieties such as mapira (sorghum), mchewere (finger millet), chibwabwa (local pumpkin), nandolo (pigeon pea), nzama (bambara nut) and mpiru (mustard greens) remain central to Malawi’s traditional diet.
These foods are not merely staples; they are living heritage. They appear in cherished dishes like mgaiwa porridge (a whole grain maize porridge mixed with groundnut flour), futali (which pairs boiled sweet potatoes with groundnut sauce), chigodo (pounded finger millet) and nsima ya mapira (a sorghum meal).
These meals are deeply embedded in community life – from ceremonies to everyday family tables. They are vital for child nutrition, women’s health and elder care, providing essential fiber, iron, protein and micronutrients often missing from modern diets.
Each Seed Keeper Circle includes between 15 and 25 members, with women comprising more than 70 percent. Young people provide innovation and energy, stepping into leadership roles with enthusiasm.
The circles embody shared values of seed sovereignty, cultural preservation and ecological sustainability. Organized as decentralized groups, each community hosts its own circle, which is further supported by smaller teams focused on seed multiplication, storage, cataloguing and education.
Seeds are safeguarded in community-managed seed banks using simple yet effective traditional storage methods like clay pots, calabashes and locally-constructed granaries that preserve seed viability through natural ventilation and protection from pests, heat and moisture.
Within each circle, seed custodians, typically experienced women farmers, oversee seed storage, document seed traits and coordinate seasonal seed sharing and exchange. These custodians are revered as living libraries of seed knowledge in their communities.
“We are not just growing crops – we’re growing our future,” says Joseph Kabotolo, a 35-year-old trained agroecologist and youth leader from Mnongwa.
“These seeds represent our roots, and by saving them, we are ensuring that our communities thrive, even as the world changes around us.”
Every Friday, designated market days bring vibrant gatherings where Seed Keeper Circles sell indigenous seeds alongside surplus agroecological produce.
Farmers proudly offer branded packets of native seeds but also generate income from crops such as dry mapira sorghum used for brewing or milling, fresh pigeon peas, bambara nuts and sun-dried pumpkin leaves for cooking, boiled groundnuts packaged for snacking and sweet potato bundles, alongside baskets of dried cassava chips.
These markets are lively cultural events, with stalls adorned with handwoven mats and colorful local fabrics. Vendors call out in Chichewa, the most widely-spoken native language in Malawi, and women in vibrant traditional zitenje garments display their seeds and produce beneath shelters crafted from thatch.
The scent of roasted groundnuts mingles with that of freshly cut pumpkin, creating a sensory celebration of community identity, sustainability and rural innovation.
Today, Seed Keeper Circles collectively attract more than 200 regular buyers from seven market centers. These include urban kitchen gardeners and permaculture enthusiasts from Lilongwe, as well as smallholder farmers from nearby villages purchasing seeds for their households.
Some regular customers include school agriculture clubs, NGOs, community-based organizations sourcing seeds for their projects, and training centers that use seeds for educational plots. Aside from the Seed Keeper Circles, they also purchase seeds from small agro-dealers who resell seeds at weekly markets or to cooperatives.
Beyond commerce, these fairs serve as dynamic knowledge-sharing spaces where farmers exchange planting advice, cooking techniques and climate resilience strategies.
Youth clubs organize exhibitions of intercropping demonstration plots, while Agri Impact Malawi hosts pop-up tents offering technical guidance, printed seed guides and nutritional education.
“These seeds carry stories and strength,” says Kabotolo. “By taking them to markets, we’re not just selling – we’re teaching others to value what we nearly lost.”
My name is Vincent Makiyi, and I’m the executive director of Agri Impact Malawi.
We’re an organization that coordinates seed saving by providing technical support, organizing training sessions, facilitating peer learning exchanges and connecting circles to markets and policy platforms.
We take this a step further by distributing seed storage materials, assessing the quality of seeds and ensuring that seed saving aligns with national agroecology and biodiversity goals.
We have a strategic partnership with Golden Seed, a Malawian agro-enterprise dedicated to ethical seed production, which has expanded the reach of the Seed Keeper Circles. Indigenous seeds are now featured in Golden Seed’s distribution catalogue and sold in agro-dealer shops across Lilongwe and surrounding districts.
This collaboration has unlocked bulk sales opportunities to NGOs, schools and training institutions, while ensuring that community seed savers receive technical guidance on post-harvest handling and market standards.
We also train women and young farmers in marketing, branding and financial literacy, facilitating their access to village savings and loan associations.
Our goal is to help farmers pool their resources, reinvest in seed production and sustainably scale their operations.
As Malawi faces the impacts of the climate crisis, rising food insecurity and cultural erosion, seed saving has become a powerful act of resilience.
The Seed Keeper Circles do more than preserve crops. They safeguard a way of life grounded in local knowledge, ecological balance and community cooperation.
These seeds carry nutritional, economic and cultural significance, ensuring traditional foods like mapira, nandolo, and mchewere remain central to local diets, rituals and livelihoods.
At Agri Impact Malawi, we believe saving seeds is saving sovereignty. Through these circles, we are reimagining agriculture as the production and preservation of biodiversity, identity and dignity.
We envision a resilient Malawi where Indigenous seeds are celebrated, protected and planted by future generations.
Let this be a call to action for communities, institutions and readers everywhere: within every seed lies the power to rebuild what we have lost and to cultivate a more sovereign, sustainable tomorrow.
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