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International, Global

INT06 - Foundations for Farming

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Report Date: April 16, 2025

Foundations for Farming Quarterly Summary April 2025

Recent Events

DR Congo

Due to the current situation in DRC all Foundation for Farming (FFF) programmes managed by ALCUP and Alliance Evangelique have been put on hold.

There has been no recent communication with the partners as the internet is down. 

India

Franklin and his team from HUT are to provide 4-day FFF training for BHW partners in Adra, and Sironcha in August, for up to 30 farmers. They will setup WhatsApp support groups for the farmers in each partnership and return to visit the partnerships to do follow-up visits after several months.

HUT will provide reports to BHW after the trainings and follow-ups. 

The cost for the training and follow up for the two partners is approx. US$9,800. This includes all course materials, their travel and accommodation.

While in Chennai Kevin, Glenn and Sharyn (BHW Agricultural Directors) had a meeting with some people from Operation Sahay Foundation. We think they would be good to partner with for FFF training and asked them to provide a proposal. They also said they were very keen, but we have not received a proposal and need to follow up with them. 

Glenn and Sharyn are currently considering visiting the two partnerships with Franklin when he does his follow-up visits (late October-November) to look at the farmer uptake of the training. They will also look at other partnerships where FFF could be of benefit. 

Burundi

Funds were recently sent to Simeon to provide training in the Mutsinda. For the US$1,100 sent they will provide trainings to 20 farmers over four trainings at their demonstration garden. Included in the funds sent was money to purchase a mobile phone to take photos of the trainings for reports. 

They have already started training farmers in a nursery where they are growing seedlings for the farmers to plant out soon.  

Kenya

Recently Jesse reported that they were about to start on the next phase of development on the Rongo property. The work includes rock and tree stump removal, fencing, and the construction of the first buildings which will be basic structures, also the purchase of seeds, tools and fencing materials. We understand that all this work has been funded by Dove Ministries Africa for this phase, and no funds have been requested from BHW at this stage.

Uganda

In early January Thomas Lubari ran a FFF training in Koboko, 12 kms from the Southern Sudan border town of Kaya. Participants included farmers from the DRC, South Sudan and Uganda. 

Thomas is also running FFF trainings in the Rhino and Imvepi refugee camps. Thomas commented he is building a strong team for FFF in the refugee camps.

Thomas has recently applied for funding (US$6,000) to run FFF trainings in Yei and Juba in South Sudan.  

We have had a WhatsApp meeting with Rene Braakman (board member of FFF) regarding a FFF training base in Jinga (Father Heart Farming) that he is involved with. We discussed the possibility of them providing training for partners in Uganda in the future. This sounds promising and reasonably inexpensive (US$30 for each trainee attending a basic training). Others from BHW who have visited the facility were very positive about the training offered.  

Matt (BHW Uganda Partnership Facilitator) has identified numerous groups he thinks would benefit greatly from training or refresher courses at Father Heart Farming Training Centre. Glenn and Sharyn hope to visit with Matt sometime in the future regarding partnerships where FFF could be of benefit.

Zambia

This season's crops are growing well after good rainfall but some late season rains has caused some crops to rot.

At GLO Edwin has trained his Alpha group to make Bokashi fertiliser and crops are looking OK.

In Chipata the rains haven’t been so good, but recent photos show a fantastic soyabean crop.

Zimbabwe

There haven’t been any recent updates from the partnerships here.  

Other

We have emailed Hazel Edwards at FFF headquarters in Harare asking if they could provide us with a list of training centres and trainers who they would recommend, and are waiting for a reply, with the hope of using some of these centres in the future.