Back on the farm

It’s been another good day on the farm today – ooh aar. A group of people from a church in Kisii, (our closest ‘big’ town), visited today to find out more about Farming God’s Way (FGW). One way or another I’ve had a fairly office based week so far so it was nice to get out and do something practical again.

We started the training with a tour of the latrines and the farm. Starting a tour with an in depth look at the toilets might not seem like the obvious way to get going but our visitors seemed suitably impressed by the Ecosan latrines and the compost we make from them. On then to the farm… It is difficult not to gloat over the cobs of corn that we have on the FGW plots – they really are huge. Having a field full of the evidence that FGW really does work gets our training off to a good start. We are really hoping that a very, very large number of people in our area will adopt this method of farming but will not go out on the stump shouting its praises. We are hoping that leading by example will stimulate real interest in FGW.

The best part of the training is the ‘science bit’ at the end of the hole digging. (For a fuller explanation of the steps involved in setting up a FGW plot follow either one of these links) –

http://www.hopeandkindness.org/ProjectFarming.htm – (Our website)

http://www.farming-gods-way.org/home.htm – FGW site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avlBtPSipa0 – FGW videos

The experiments demonstrate how wasteful traditional approaches to farming are and help to explain why so much of Africa’s topsoil is being deposited in oceans! Our visitors seemed convinced by the demonstrations and I am optimistic that some of them will be Farming God’s Way in the next growing season. Pastor Peter, who led the group, has promised to let us know how his church members get on and I hope that we will be able to post pictures of good harvests on our website in the coming year.