Develop content and/or a training guide outlining productive agricultural techniques
Status: 
Time needed:
Two weeks or more
Step:
1
Households in Moung Russey are constantly at risk from the threat of food poverty and lack of income. Families who own land often do not produce sufficient quantities to fulfill the family’s dietary requirements, and many landless families are wholly reliant on wages to buy food. These wages are low, and workers are often the victims of exploitation or lack employment. Villagers routinely seek work outside of the commune due to lack of employment opportunities within the commune.
The area is also prone to drought and flooding, which has been the cause of crop failure and famine. At the time of the most recent CYDC community assessment in July 2008, the region was in drought and there was general fear of an impending crop failure.
Humanitarian aid and under-funded, under-developed government initiatives have not met the challenge of dealing with the roots of chronic poverty in the target communities. Reliance on aid is only a short term solution, and communities must be equipped with skills and technical support in order to set themselves on the path to food and income security. CYDC would like to change this.
For this task, we would like volunteers to work together to develop a training manual that could be reproduced and utilized by the CYDC to teach more productive agricultural techniques.
10 manuals can be written but what is needed is for someone to go to the village[s] and show people what has been successful in every country in the world. No company or individual profit by it; just the famers who receive the training. It is called organic, 0-till gardening and farming in permanent beds using bucket drip irrigation during the dry season. See the photo for what can be grown during the dry season when prices are highest.
GARDENS/MINI-FARMS NETWORK
Wrokshops: USA - TX, MS, FL, CA, AR, NM; Mexico, Rep. Dominicana, Côté d’Ivoire,Nigeria, Nicaragua, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Haiti, England, India, Uzbekistan
minifarms@gmail.com
Workshops in organic, no-till, permanent bed gardening, mini-farming and mini-ranching,
using bucket drip irrigation, worldwide, in English & Español
Proven Practices for Farming
The solution to world hunger is teaching the farmers to farm profitably and sell locally. There is a grassroots movement, around the world, for families and groups to produce their own food due to cost, flavor and chemical contamination. "There's this belief that in order to stop poverty, we have to find ways to get people to stop being farmers. What we need to do is find ways to stop them from being poor farmers." Amy Smith, MIT
These are based on the internet, US & international agriculture magazines, experiences teaching agriculture in many countries, research data and farmer experiences in those countries and a demonstration garden. They are ecologically sustainable, environmentally responsible, socially just and economically viable. There is unlimited, documented proof. There are 90,000,000 no-till hectares worldwide.
Fukaoka Farm, Japan, has been no-till [rice, small grains, vegetables] for 70 years. At the time of my visits, an Indian farmer has been no-till [vegetables] for 5 years, a Malawi farmer has been no-till [vegetables] on permanent beds for 25 years and a Honduras farmer has been no-till [vegetables & fruit] on permanent beds on the contour (73° slope] for 8 years. Ruth Stout [USA] had a no-till garden for 30 years and 7,000 people visited her garden. Free DVD available.
No technique yet devised by man has been anywhere near as effective at halting soil erosion and making food production truly sustainable as 0-tillage (Baker)
1. Restore the soil to its natural health. Contamination: inorganic pesticides, insecticides & fertilizers
2. Maintain the healthy soil. Healthy soil produces healthy crops with highest yields and prevents most disease, pest, weed and erosion problems.
3. Increase the soil’s organic matter every year.
4. Little or no external inputs [It is not necessary to buy anything, from anybody.]
5. Leave crop residue on top of soil. No burning. You are burning up fertilizer. Do not plow it into the soil.
6. Plant green manure/cover crops to increase the soil organic matter. Seeds are available in every country.
7. Plant the new crop in the crop residue by opening up a row or a place for the seed.
8. Plant every field every year [no fallow land]
9. 0-tillage: no plowing, no digging, no cultivating. No hard physical labor required so children and the elderly can farm easily. After two or three years the yields can double while reducing the labor by half compared to traditional farming. Farmers farm ten acres alone using hand tools only [Honduras]
10. Tree crops: fruit, nuts, coffee [shade-grown], etc. Use perennial cover crops
11. Permanent paths [walking]
12. Permanent beds. They were used 2000 BC in Guatemala, Mexico and many other coun-tries. 15-25% of the land is in paths and that saves 15-25% of the seed, water and labor but yields will be higher.
13. Hand tools: machete, weed cutter, seeding hoe. Local blacksmith should make them.
14. Soil always covered. Never leave the soil bare.
15. No compost making. Use the organic matter for mulch. If there is an excess, pile it up and use later.
16. Vermiculture: Not necessary; too much labor. Do it in the soil in the fields.
17. SRI - system of rice intensification. Double yields, reduces water requirements by 50% and reduces labor.
18. SRI for other crops: sugar cane, finger millet, cotton, wheat, mustard.
19. Bucket drip irrigation should be used during the dry season and in areas of low rainfall: Imported bucket drip kits are US$15. A bucket drip line can be made locally from poly tubing [US$3, Nicaragua]. One will irrigate a row of crops 33 meters long using only 20 liters of water per day. A dripline can be moved to irrigate several rows per day. Water can be from a stream, pond or well. A drip kit returns $20 per month to the farmer [FAO study].
Ken Hargesheimer minifarms@gmail.com
When Soil is Plowed
Dr. Elaine Ingham, describes an undisturbed grassland—where a wide diversity of plants grow, their roots mingling with a wide diversity of soil organisms—and how it changes when it is plowed. [The same is true of a jungle, rainforest, forest, etc]
A typical teaspoon of native grassland soil contains between 600 million and 800 million individual bacteria that are members of perhaps 10,000 species. Several miles of fungi are in that teaspoon of soil, as well as 10,000 individual protozoa. There are 20 to 30 beneficial nematodes from as many as 100 species. Root-feeding nematodes are quite scarce in truly healthy soils. They are present, but in numbers so low that it is rare to find them.
After only one plowing, a few species of bacteria and fungi disappear because the food they need is no longer put back in the system. But for the most part, all the suppressive organisms, all the nutrient cyclers, all the decomposers, all the soil organisms that rebuild good soil structure are still present and trying to do their jobs.
But tillage continues to deplete soil organic matter and kill fungi. The larger predators are crushed, their homes destroyed. The bacteria go through a bloom and blow off huge amounts of that savings-account organic matter. With continued tillage, the "policemen" (organisms) that compete with and inhibit disease are lost. The "architects" that build soil aggregates are lost. So are the "engineers"—the larger organisms that design and form the larger pores in soil. The predators that keep bacteria, fungi, and root-feeding organisms in check are lost. Disease suppression declines, soil structure erodes, and water infiltration decreases because mineral crusts form. Dr. Elaine Ingham, BioCycle, December 1998. (From ATTRA News, July 06)
Tue, Dec 30, 2008
Dear Ken,
Thank you for all the DVD’s you sent me. Thank you for all the info. I am applying it in my own vegetable patch. It is working. Got half a pocket of potatoes off a square metre. So would imagine about 10 pounds per square yard. This off previously dead low, carbon soil. Sure next crop will be better. Got yams coming up on same spot already. Want to plant herbs and spices. I will send photos.
Your advise is so simple. People do not believe me when I tell them. I am so excited about growing things now. This coming from a commercial plum farmer. May you be blessed this holy season a thousand times more than you blessed me with you help.Jeremy Karsen, middagkrans@mwebbiz.co.za
Project room: Kyomya, Uganda
We have been working on improving farming techniques for almost a year. Unfortunately, the farmers are planting small plots of land that only feed their family. There is no other choice but to try new techniques to improve the output of their plot. Ken Hargesheimer suggested the "no till" farming techniques as well as the "drip system". Both have proven effective at increasing production by at least 5 fold. The time is now for Kyomya to become a model agricultural village. [nabuur.com]
Hi Ken-
I agree with you as I know Kimsorn does as well that someone coming to the local community to teach them would be the most effective means. The idea behind a manual is that it is an additional resource that could be referred back to later, or used for new people that may not have had the benefit of training in person. I am envisioning something similar to what Corwin developed. It would be great to outline this method in a similar way. The picture is very helpful to me in visualizing how this works.
CYDC would very much like to establish a community extension nursery, so I think identifying people who can come in person in addition to providing them with a training guide (maybe that's a better term than manual) would be ideal.
Based on your post, do people from this association travel and provide training? Also, I saw in one of the older threads that you had sent DVD's to the community-is this method outlined on those?
Thanks for your help!
Jennifer
Jennifer,
Yes, they got my DVDs months ago. I wonder where they are. Was the knowledge taken to the village? My dvds are about crop production using organic, 0-till and bucket drip irrigation.
I do not understand "do people from this association travel and provide training?" in your email. What association?
It might be possible to get the expenses paid by the USAID under their FARMER TO FARMER PROJECT. The USAID funds provides expenses for people to go abroad and teach for three weeks various subjects to farmers. I have been to India and Dominican Republic sponsored by FTF.
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/agriculture/farmer_to_farmer.htm I am applying to go to Ghana. I taught in India and Dominican Republic funded by them.
Several copies of ELDIS MANUALS AND TOOLKITS DISC has arrived and it is worth getting a copy[s] to distribute to the people you are working with. Some is not practical but some is very much so and covers just about any subject you can think of to help people/villages in developing countries. eldisondisc@ids.ac.uk
www.eldis.org
Hi Ken-
I guess maybe I didn't fully understand in your message who did what. I thought that mini farms was a group of farmers? That is what I was referring to. Is that your farm?
Thanks for the ideas-I will make sure to go through those with Kimsorn and also find out what happened with the discs. Again, I'm really new to this village myself, so still finding my way around all the information presented so far and trying to get caught up on where things were before everything fell silent.
Not recreating the wheel is a good thing! I'll check with Kimsorn about how easy it might be to reproduce some of this information and then use it to compile a visual guide-although honestly, if we're successful at getting someone to come in person they might bring their own visual materials to distribute which could then maybe be utilized for new trainees too.
Thanks again for your help!
Jennifer
"Gardens/MiniFarms Network" is me. I learned that operating as "Ken Hargesheimer" did not fly.
I wish I could find the funds to teach in several countries.
Dear Ken and Jenifer
Thank you for your good relationship in my village, I have got the DVD from Ken and we send to my colleague for Khmer tranlation and convert to local language so that they can easy understanding. I and my team after busy on internal policy and project plan development now is working on manual of each project study from all source contribute. I have get one DVD from local agriculture orgization call CEDAC on SRI produce and Manual of Food security assessment tool from FAO in DVD, with your DVD support and some information shring I hope we can develop tool manual fro CYDC training course. What we are looking is some budget for expert fee or expert voluteer to help us in develop this manual that can translate to local language and provide training to self help group. I hope you have long experience on this work and can help us on this project.
Best regards,
SA kimsorn
Kimsorn-
I am going to try and help find someone who can volunteer to help with the translation so that it is not necessary to pay someone to do it. If we are able to find someone we need to work out the logistics of how to get them this information. Are the DVD's the only items that need translation?
Kind regards-
Jennifer
Dear Jennifer and All
I have already got the documents and DVD from Ken and some seeds for practice with the farmer of women household and youth volunteer in Moung Russey village. We have tried to contributed and practice with them but some seed not grow and some tichnical of organic farm management is not well go on, depend on my skill of agriculture translation and weather situation during our implement project wet and graugh suddenly that made crop produced worse harvest in area. I have to search all solution to do on this and contacted with many of expert for promote these activity. The agriculture expert is existing here and can translate on DVD and other lesson but they need to charge the fee from me that imposible for volunteer team and lack of funding support of CYDC. I think the first important is to translate and prepare with clear understanding on lesson in DVD and second is that suitable seeds support to practice with the group.
We sure our struggling to work on these will full support from other possible
Regards,
Kimsorn
Hello Kimsorn,
It's been a long time since I visited Moung Russey and it's hearthwarming to know that kind hearted people are helping you and your community. With Ken and Jennifer in tow, I know you're in good hands and you'll be siccessful in your endeavor.
Best regards and more power!
Junjun
Dear Junjun
Thank you for your information and welcome back to Moung Russey, exectly we are still keeping in our strategy to build training center for youth and women on the blue print that have developed by your friend in 2005. We have go forwards from community base to Local base NGO for seeking fund to support youth, women and disable after general community assessment that participant from Nabuur.com volunteer Ms Caroline and Denialle from Netherlands and UK. We would like invite all neighbors wish to put hand to help these group in supporting to our stragy and sharing fund raising to achieve the purposed of project that accepted by local authority. Our central of group capacity building for self reliance and sustainable livelihood is still remain need of current situation of Cambodia also Moung Russey village. We would like appriciate to Jennifer and Ken that always tried to put in many solution to improve the project process with our volunteer team here.
We looking forwards to make good cooperation with you all
Best regards,
Kimsorn SA
Moung Russey LR and CYDC ED
P.O. Box 296 Battambang city, Cambodia
tel: +855 99 323238 or +977 323238
E-mail: kimsorn_sa@yahoo.com, cydc.org_kh@yahoo.com
Dear Kimsorn,
It's a great feeling to know you have volunteers who will assist you and visit your community. Also, changing the focus to keep up with the present situation is also understandable. Hope that your project will be successful and will reach out as many people in your community.
Best regards,
Junjun