As I promised I visited Chaba in August to find out the harvest outcome for the year 2014/15 season. I also went back in September for the seminar. I am happy to say that both my trips were successful. God helped us to have a good time refreshing our minds and encouraging one another in farming God's way.
A lot of people are keen to do much more and many want to be trained. I did assure the people that the training is an ongoing issue and more people will be considered next year.
The average yield of maize for those using the Foundations for Farming method was 4.94 ton per hectare versus 3.6 ton for those using the old method. However I'd say that even with the “old method” the principals of FfF are seeping thru to increase that yield of traditional farming from where it was before this all started (1 ton per hectare).
The reason for the poor harvest was due to the late rain fall meaning planting was in December rather than November. This meant overall yields have dropped from the previous season, but are still very good considering. Most farmers are keen to improve and are not discouraged at all but will work hard this coming season and are busy preparing for this year's planting. I was encouraged to hear their commitment and plans to work hard.
For rice the new method seems to finally be being taken a bit more seriously and people are showing good results as well. The new FfF method produced 4.3 ton per hectare versus 1.9 ton per hectare using the old method so that’s a great result!
I went back to Chaba for the farming training seminar in September. We had the seminar from Monday 14th to Saturday 19th September 2015.
The seminar was a success and I am looking forward to see the impact cassava training will have in Chaba. As farmers do well the number of new trainees will keep on going up and this makes me excited! Thanks a million times for your timely support and encouragement in farming. This is really having an impact and subsequently empowering the Chaba community.
For us this is meeting one of our objectives of the organizational constitution. Any achievement in one’s goals is really a blessing and very humbling indeed.
God bless you
Bobo Peter Chomba