The Bwanje Valley Irrigation Scheme (BVIS) was constructed in the central region of Malawi within
Mtakataka Extension Planning Area (EPA)2 on the Lake Malawi lakeshore plain in Dedza district. It was
established in January 2000 at a total cost of US$ 15 million and targeted 12,000 households in 14
villages. The scheme covered an area of 800 hectares and benefitted over 2000 smallholder farmers
(Bolding, 2004; Diemer, 1990). The primary goal of the scheme was to improve household food security
and increase income levels of beneficiaries through increased production of rice and other crops
such as maize, soybean, and cowpea through irrigation (GoM, 2013). According to the agreement, all
farmers that were involved in the scheme construction were allocated land within the scheme by the
chiefs. Some villages had more land than others and this enabled the respective village chiefs to allocate
a larger portion of the land to their subjects. For instance, some farmerswere allocated 2.0 hectares
of land although they were not able to use all of the allocated irrigated land