Report by BHW's Agricultural Director Following Visit

Key person: Inacio

Recent Events

Activities

In the last six months they have seen a breakthrough in the evangelism of the Koti people. The Koti people, who are Muslim, normally say that Jesus is for the tribe of the Macua but not for them. However this year they have been preaching in the islands and the mainland and have seen over 800 people baptized in the name of Jesus.

The land that the partnership owns has seen some building start with a toilet block and some foundations.

The teaching program has over 1,000 pupils being taught each week with literacy in their local languages. 

Foundations for Farming Training

The training course we ran went very well with about 20 people there who were obviously into farming. They were really interested in the training, asking many questions, disagreeing on points and talking lots. A great bunch of people who really understood the need to be faithful with what God has given them so he can bless them to bless others. 

One part that really spoke to us of their heart was when we were discussing the clearing of the field in preparation for planting. It seemed we weren’t quite connecting with them as we were explaining the need to clear land that had already been used for farming but they were thinking that we were telling them to farm virgin land from the bush and remove trees etc.

After sorting out our differences we were able to discuss the need for the land that we farm to become better and better, not for farming to reduce the fertility and performance of the land. Current farming methods mean that after about four years they move off the land to a new piece as that piece would be “finished”. Oh to be so rich in abundance of land!

We showed them how God's mandate for humankind to Adam was to work the land and take care of it. We should be taking care of the land and redeeming it, making it better and better. The discussion turned around into saying that imagine if the community saw you farm the land that they all think is finished, and you with God's help redeem it, making it very fertile land through the way you farm. Then the community will say “what is this?” And you will be then able to share how God has helped you redeem the land and share with the community how Christ can redeem and restore them as well. There was a lot of hooting and hollering as these humble guys saw what impact this could have in their own communities.

Personal Stories

Amadenho

This young man is married with two small children, aged 3 and 1. He works with Inacio in the organization, helping with the teaching of literacy to young children, and is a leader in his local church. He receives some support from this program and tops this up by farming. He attended the one day Foundations for Farming training in 2015.

He rents a field which is pretty expensive at 12,000 meticash (US$200) per year. In this field he grows mainly cassava with groundnuts interplanted and some beans and tomatoes. These he uses to feed his family, he doesn’t produce much for sale.

The main things that he learnt and applied from the training the year before was to not burn and to leave the grass and crop residues in the field to build up organic matter.

Some of the main issues we see are the plant spacing for cassava being far too wide, meaning waste of land and resource and lack of crop stand coverage, and there still needs to be more mulch and organic matter added to this very sandy light soil.

Amadenho attended the three day FFF course we ran this visit.

Matalana

This dear old lady has an amazing looking crop of cassava. The field is the only means of support she has. She planted ground nuts as an intercrop and harvested one bag from the field.

She attended the FFF day course in 2015 and from that she learnt not to burn and too leave weed and crop residue in the field.

Jose Carlos

Jose is the church leader in the Napruma zone. We visited a very joyful church of the Macua people on Sunday morning and then walked about 20 minutes each way to see his farm.

He has amazing looking cassava that was planted with ground nuts in November 2015. He harvested 80 bags of ground nuts from the two farms, about 1 acre each. The ground nuts were planted at 12 cm spacings. 

The main change in his farming since attending the one day course last year was leaving the crop and weed residue as mulch and having consistent spacing in his cassava (1.5 to 2.0m). People will come to his house to buy the cassava he has grown. From the ground nut harvest profits we saw that he had managed to fund buying a grinding machine for maize and cassava.

Joakuim and Elidio

These two men have been growing vegetables for sale for the last few years together. They grow lettuce, green pepper and cabbage. They have a stream that is right next to the planted beds and water by hand each day which takes about 2.5 hours.

The spacing and lay out of the beds is at an excellent standard and the crops are very well weeded. We discussed the use of mulch being similar to how people like to sit in the shade to be protected from the sun and to apply the mulch before planting.

They sell in Angoche with customers either coming to the farm or they load up sacks and take the produce to town on bicycles.

Cabbage sells for 20 meticash
Lettuce sells for 2 meticash
Green pepper for 2 meticash

Ideas for the Future

We discussed with Inacio about a micro-loan program to help farmers with a small 25m by 25m plot each, if they had prepared fields, made compost etc. He is going to think about it and how it might work.

Current Issues and Challenges

One issue the people have here is that there is no agriculture shop in Angoche. The nearest is five hours drive away in Nampula but even there they don’t always have seed and fertilizer. The seed and fertilizer comes from Zimbabwe. 1kg of maize seed costs 50 to 100 mets (US$1-$2) and 1kg of fertilizer costs 60 to 70 mets (US$1).

The main issues we see with farming in the area are:
- The soil is very sandy and in need of organic matter
- Mulch and compost needs to be applied
- Correct spacing and accurate measurements are needed to ensure there is no field waste and to get better canopy coverage
- The seed used for maize is local maize, which is normally great, but it is a longer term maturing variety and often the rains have stopped before the cobs have matured. If they could get some shorter term maturing seed that would be better.

Comments

We are hoping that they will get into applying what they have learnt. Some of the trainee’s farms are not too far away so they are looking at visiting each other to encourage one another. Inacio has said he will go and see some of the farmers and take some photos to send us.

We will aim to revisit in one to two years depending on how they go.