community mobilisation and awareness building on sustainable agriculture
Status: 
Step:
2
EFORDE wish to facilitate public awareness campaigns to sensitize and inspire local people with increased knowledge, skills, positive attitude and enthusiam to engage in sustainable fruit growing and agriculture.
They wish to advise farmers on sustainable farming practices and techniques that can help increase crop yields (e.g. green manuring and composting, soil erosion control, mulching, intercropping with nitrogen-fixing crops, crop rotation, etc) including providing to farmers technical advice and information (including criteria and guidelines) on "Integrated Nutrient Management" and "Integrated Pest Management”
Therefore they will need to
1. Organize community mobilisation seminars on project activities
(attached is the draft proposal for the first community mobilisation seminar)
2. Organise 3 awareness workshops on the potential and benefits of sustainable fruit growing, agroforestry (including tree growing)and home gardening initiatives including: one for local leaders (i.e. the parish and sub-county chiefs, the local council (LC) chairpersons and secretaries responsible for community development in Nabitende parish).
3. Produce and disseminate at least 3,000 awareness materials including brochures, posters and maybe even T-Shirts on fruit growing and tree planting Practices.
4. Produce a 45-minute video documentary about the project for out reach purposes
5. Establish a demonstation plot for outreach purposes.
In this task we ask neighbours to find green agricultural resources online or to help create posters and learning materials for EFORDE
Hi Sinead!
Sorry for not being online for several days.However,i was able to pass through our proposal and i am happy that now we have a starting point in our hands.I would like also to thank all of our neighbours for the good job they are doing.I am happy that Mr.Ken is our member,may be if we could contact him,he will help us with training DVD's and VCD's.Lets try to trace him Madam.
Much thanks,
Philimon.
Hi Philimon,
Welcome back, I'm glad to say that Ken has posted dvds to Uganda for the project and he has also posted the DVD to me. I hope to get it in a few days. Malcolm is also sending me some reading material. Maybe on our webpage/facebook group we could have some educational resources on sustainable agriculture.
but what the village needs is posters and/or brochures that can be handed out at meetings in Nabitende or hung up in places were people meet.Pastor Paddy could have a supply ready to hand to people who might be interested in participating in the project. An onsite community volunteer could use these materials for training.
What do you all think,
Sinéad
hi neighbours,
just to let you know I recieved the dvds this morning in the post, thank you very much Ken,
Here is Ken's ideas on project implentation and bucket drip irrigation
Workshops: 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)
this is very useful,
thanks Sinéad
Hi all,
Here is the manual on composting in the tropics, maybo we could use it for an awareness programme
--
fatima
control arms now
If you want to make compost that is fine but I have made tons of compost but no more. Instead use that organic matter as a mulch on the soil. Even better is to grow green manure/cover crops to add organic matter/fertilizer to the soil. Very little work. Intercrop maize or other crop or just plant a gm/cc on vacant land.
Ken
Dear friends,
Greetings
Wish u all the best for your success in sustainable agriculture.
hi Ratikanta,
welcome to Nabitende! thank you for your blessing, please join the village and then all postings will appear in your "My Nabuur page". Share your expierences and skills with the village,
thanks,
Sinéad
I AM impressed by your project and willing to work with you if their is anything i can do dont hesitate to contact me on kamburakwiriga@yahoo.com
Hi,
it is great you are willing to help the village out, we are looking for posters and training manuals about modern farming methods,
I found a manual on raised beds, hope it helps
thank you all,
sinéad
The instructions on raised bed farming say. "The main disadvantage of raised bed is that they dry out quickly." 'The main advantage is that the soil warms up quickly in the spring.' Surely in a tropical climate, where irrigation is needed for part of the year, the advantages don't outweigh the disadvantages.
Rick Ellis
My first beds I used sides on them but no more. Not necessary. I do not use "raised" beds; I use permanent beds. Just mark them off and plant! As you add organic matter, the beds will slowly get higher than the walkways/paths.
Hello Ken
Would it worthwhile to buy some manure/compost to kickstart the growing in permanent beds and rely on your methods to make it sustainable. Patience would probably be more profitable but it is important to get the vegetable beds up to full speed quickly so that they can move on to the second tree planting phase of the project.
--
Rick Ellis
Most of my experience is in the tropics. Permanent beds are the way to garden and farm in every country in the world. The farmers have no money to purchase anything. My advice is to never buy anything except new seed.
The "book" says that raised beds dry out but soil should never be left bare. Therefore, with the beds covered with mulch, there is no drying out. For irrigating, use bucket drip irrigation.
thanks very much Ken for your support concerning farming. We have a problem with the termites, how do we overcome it if we cover the ground? Help
Paddy.
Hi Paddy,
Use this mixture:
1kg syringa and or neem leaves soaked in 2 litres of water for 5 days.Then squeeze this to make a thick solution and dilute 1:5 and water the ground well.
there are other organic methods and we will keep you updated,
Sinéad