This paper has two purposes: first of all, we examine grandmothers' role and views of child feeding practices in northern Malawi, and their influence on younger women's practices. Secondly, we consider the implications of these findings for health promotion activities and models of health education. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews, focus groups and a participatory workshop. Findings demonstrate that, to address child feeding practices which have an effect on nutrition, attention must be paid to the broader context that influences child nutrition, including extended family relations. Paternal grandmothers have a powerful and multifaceted role within the extended family in northern Malawi, both in terms of childcare and in other arenas such as agricultural practices and marital relations. Grandmothers often differ in their ideas about early child feeding from conventional Western medicine. Some practices have existed in the area at least since colonial times, and have strong cultural significance. Despite the important integrated role, older women have within households and communities in this part of Malawi, hospital personnel often have disparaging and paternalistic attitudes towards 'grannies' and their knowledge. Health education rarely involves grandmothers, and even if they are involved, their perspectives are not taken into consideration. Hospital staff often reject grandmother knowledge as part of a broader modernization paradigm which views 'traditional knowledge' as backward. Grandmothers view current child health conditions within a broader context of changing livelihood conditions and a high prevalence of HIV/ AIDS. The paper concludes by discussing the challenges of involving grandmothers in health education, and the difficulties of incorporating local knowledge into a medical system that largely rejects it.

Legume species are uniquely suited to enhance soil productivity and provide nutrient-enriched grains and vegetables for limited-resource farmers. Yet substantial barriers to diversification with legumes exist, such as moderate yield potential and establishment costs, indicating the need for long-term engagement and farmer-centered research and extension. This review and in-depth analysis of a Malawian case study illustrates that farmer experimentation and adoption of legumes can be fostered among even the most resource-poor smallholders. Multi-educational activities and participatory research involving farmer research teams was carried out with 80 communities. Over five years more than 3000 farmers tested legumes and gained knowledge of legume contributions to child nutrition and soil productivity. The average area of expansion of legume systems was 862 m 2 in 2005; 772 m 2 for women and 956 m 2 for men indicating a gender dimension to legume adoption. Farmers chose edible legume intercrops such as pigeonpea and groundnut over the mucuna green manure system, particularly women farmers. Interestingly, expansion in area of doubled-up edible legumes (854 m 2 in 2005) was practiced by more farmers, but was a smaller area than that of mucuna green manure system (1429 m 2 ). An information gap was discovered around the biological consequences of legume residue management. Education on the soil benefits of improved residue management and participatory methods of knowledge sharing were associated with enhanced labour investment; 72 % of farmers reported burying legume residues in 2005 compared to 15 % in 2000. Households reported feeding significantly more edible legumes to their children compared with control households. Participatory research that incorporated nutritional education fostered discussions within households and communities, the foundation for sustained adoption of legume-diversified systems.

Long-term efforts to improve child nutrition through participatory agricultural interventions had a significant effect on child growth.

Climate change is projected to have severe implications for smallholder agriculture in Africa, with increased temperatures, increased drought and flooding occurrence, and increased rainfall variability. Given these projections, there is a need to identify effective strategies to help rural communities adapt to climatic risks. Yet, relatively little research has examined the politics and social dynamics around knowledge and sources of information about climate-change adaptation with smallholder farming communities. This paper uses a political ecology approach to historically situate rural people's experiences with a changing climate. Using the concept of the co-production of knowledge, we examine how Malawian smallholder farmers learn, perceive, share and apply knowledge about a changing climate, and what sources they draw on for agroecological methods in this context. As well, we pay particular attention to agricultural knowledge flows within and between households. We ask two main questions: Whose knowledge counts in relation to climate-change adaptation? What are the political, social and environmental implications of these knowledge dynamics? We draw upon a long-term action research project on climate-change adaptation that involved focus groups, interviews, observations, surveys, and participatory agroecology experiments with 425 farmers. Our findings are consistent with other studies, which found that agricultural knowledge sources were shaped by gender and other social inequalities, with women more reliant on informal networks than men. Farmers initially ranked extension services as important sources of knowledge about farming and climate change. After farmers carried out participatory agroecological research, they ranked their own observation and informal farmer networks as more important sources of knowledge. Contradictory ideas about climate-change adaptation, linked to various positions of power, gaps of knowledge and social inequalities make it challenging for farmers to know how to act despite observing changes in rainfall. Participatory agroecological approaches influenced adaptation strategies used by smallholder farmers in Malawi, but most still maintained the dominant narrative about climate-change causes, which focused on local deforestation by rural communities. Smallholder farmers in Malawi are responsible for <1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet our results show that the farmers often blame their own rural communities for changes in deforestation and rainfall patterns. Researchers need to consider differences knowledge and power between scientists and farmers and the contradictory narratives at work in communities to foster long-term change.

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