Training in Conservational Agriculture (CA)

During winter time we gave a few training sessions in Conservational Agriculture (CA). The last few years the training consisted mainly of theory on CA with a small practical part. Typically a beginners style of training. We have now learned that this way of training doesn’t necessarily mean that people change their way of farming or encourages sustainable agriculture Slowly we started to work more visual by making more use of pictures and practical demonstrations (e.g. angled trays on which erosion is simulated).

This year we started to use slideshows and short video’s to show desirable and undesirable agricultural practices and symptoms.

The main story line is:
1) God’s creation; man is steward.
2) what went wrong; the fall disturbing the relationship between me and God, myself and others, in respect to myself and in respect to Creation. Resulting in all the negative sympotoms seen in agriculture: erosion, low productivity, inefficient use of rainwater.
3) How to turn this vicious circle: practical and sustainable agriculture and the involvement of the Church. The biggest issue the famers want to resolve is how stockbreeding and agriculture go together. During the training we spend quite some time on this question.

With gratitude the agricultural awareness team, in which I (Jaap) take part, look back on the training sessions we had these last few weeks. There are still some training sessions planned coming weeks. This way of training is very interactive and seems to be succesful. An average training lasts for approximately 3 hours and most of the time they continue to talk for a long time about different techniques, agricultural material and so on.

This type of training we do during the winter. During spring and summer the goal of the training sessions is different. More about visiting farms, mentoring farmers and facilitating support groups for farmers. December/January and June/July are the months in which we are pretty busy with Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) and collecting different kinds of data (e.g. status of crops, weed management, yield determination).

Questions? Please ask: email Jaap on jaapenilona9[@]gmail.com (remove brackets in the email)

Until next time!

Pictures training and exchange visit

Exchange visit

On the 8th and 9th of July we had an exchange visit with some farmers in small mountain village near Maphutseng. The concept of conservational agriculture (CA) is adopted by many of them. Ilona and I have nice memories of our visits tot his village.
This village is characterized by good leadership and co-operation. Out of necessity the farmers started to use sustainable agriculture; the steep slopes, de remote and therefor isolated location made is necessary for them to support themselves. Many people in the lowlands would have preferred to beg for money, but these 25 farmers had a good work ethic and work well together. E.g. they addressed the illegal grazing. The cattle owners and the herdboys get a hefty fine for their illegal practice.

Last April these farmers had indicated that they wanted to learn more on CA and wanted to have a look on our farm. The visit did not start off that good because the taxi did not show up. In the end the crowded taxi arrived at 21h00: 9 farmers, 2 Growing Nations colleagues, de taxidriver and his buddy. Fortunately we have room enough!

We visited two CA farms, looked at some grain silos, a farm shop and some storehouses As a bonus we got to see a lot of game: wildebeast, zebras, ostrich and all sorts of buck. During these days we talked a lot, evaluated, did bible studies and had a braai. For them it was informative to see how big the cultural differences are. On the other side: we are all one big family of our heavenly Father. We also talked about that and encouraged each other to make a difference in each others lives....thanks to or despite our cultural differences!

On the way back to the village they made stop at the new mall in Maseru. For some of them a whole new world. Mountain village versus big town Maseru. The farmers had to walk another four hours to their village after the taxi dropped them off; they felt that it was worth every step!