Women pickers in colourful costumes making their way along rows of green bushes is often the picture painted of commercial farming in Africa.

But this is not a tea plantation or a tobacco farm. The green bushes are chillies and this is a new model of development. The background to this picture is the idea that large-scale profitable farming can be combined with real rural change in the villages and small farms of poor countries like Malawi. It is farming with a social conscience.

“This is our third season growing bird’s eye chillies and they are doing well,” said John Mzembe, the farm manager at Ngala, about an hour’s drive north of Lilongwe on the flat red plains of central Malawi. It’s one of the smaller farms owned by Africa Invest, an international investment company specialising in agriculture.

“We have 200 people here, if you count all the farm workers, women pickers, the irrigation team, clerks and watchmen,” explained Mzembe. There is even a monkey patrol to keep the local monkeys away from the maize crop when it ripens.

Half of the 100ha is given over to maize. It is sold in the local markets and into the government’s emergency warehouses.

Malawi is all too susceptible to drought. In 2002, and again in 2006, there were severe shortages of maize, the staple food, and thousands of people, if not millions went hungry. This is the fifth poorest country on earth.

Africa Invest owns five farms up and down the country, employing 1200 people. They grow maize, potatoes, rice, paprika and bird’s eye chillies.

The chillies are hand picked and then spread out on tables in the hot sun to dry. They are then packed up and sold all over the world for the spicy food industry.

In one corner of the farm, Mzembe pointed out a covered shed. “ That’s our feeding station,” he said. “We give the children and old people from the village a meal there every morning.” It’s a nutritious mix of maize, soya, vitamins and sugar.

This is part of the company’s social agenda. It’s organised by Violet Jinazali, formerly of the Mother’s Union of Malawi.

Several hundred people are fed through the programme at the five farms and that number can grow into the thousands when there’s a drought. There’s also a literacy programme being developed and, through it, villagers will be encouraged to plant gardens to grow their own maize,vegetables and fruit.

Earlier, I was driven to the village of Mitundu, an hour south of Lilongwe, to see another aspect of Africa Invest’s work. There a network of outgrowers is being developed to grow paprika.

We were led into the bush by the area manager, a local farmer, Douglas Lungu, who took us to one of his latest recruits.

“This man has grown a quarter of a hectare of paprikas,” said Lungu, “and he has watered them by hand right though the dry season. They look good.”

Bauleni Takumana and his wife stand proudly by their paprika patch for photographs. He is looking forward to selling his paprikas to Africa Invest for a price guaranteed at the beginning of the season and in cash at the farm gate, unlike the tobacco crop he used to grow. He was also provided with seed for the first year and plenty of advice from Lungu.

Lungu has 500 outgrowers on his books and he hopes to push that up to 1000. His lead grower last year made 50,000 kwacha from his half hectare of paprika. That is a considerable sum when the minimum wage here is 3800k a month.

“We have five area managers like Douglas up and down Malawi,” explained the overall outgrowers manager, Ben Mwage.

“They are all local men and can advise their farmers whether to grow paprika or chillies and exactly how to do it.

“We arrange collection and payment and we take the produce to our regional depots, where a certain amount of processing takes place before it’s exported.”

Africa Invest has plans to expand into processing in Malawi, further benefiting the local economy.

“Already we are seeing profit levels of around 20 to 25%,” said the head of farming, Ian Lockington. Since 2006, the company has invested £7m in Malawi and is looking for more land to invest in.

“We believe there is a big and solid market for paprika and chillies internationally and a good domestic market for maize, potatoes and rice,” said Mr Lockington.

“We also have a labour force which is much cheaper than elsewhere in the world. But, by the way, we pay all our workers at least 60% above the minimum wage.”

What about Malawi as a country to invest in?

“Malawi has had four democractically elected governments,” said Mr Lockington. “There is no history of violence here and the present government is doing all the right things, so I see a prosperous future for Malawi.”

Could the idea of ‘social farming’ be applied elsewhere in Africa?

“Absolutely,” said Mr Lockington. “We have plans to do that as soon as the global recession is over. It needs people who want to invest – for a return – but also want to do something for development in Africa.”