Follow the cow!

The cow, (and its by products) have a number of uses in Africa. Status symbol, savings bank, life insurance, dinner, fertiliser, wall finish, clothing. It’s quite an impressive list, (and I’m sure there are other things that cows are good for that I’ve missed). Almost poetic. I am musing about cows this evening because we have been doing Farming God’s Way, (FGW), training again and I have had a revelation. It was very exciting.

A few weeks ago we started our push to persuade as many farmers as possible in our community to turn to Farming God’s Way by training some of our church leaders. The idea is to plant a number of 6m x 6m plots with maize and beans to demonstrate how effective Farming God’s Way, (a non tillage approach to farming), is. With proof that it works to show we are equipping church members to train others in the new approach. We are making good progress. Today’s session was set up to give everybody who has been trained so far an opportunity to deliver a bit of the training themselves. The session was co-ordinated by Ian and we moved at a good pace though all of the practical and biblical aspects of the course.

We have, over the years, wondered what the best way is to help members of the community here in Kosele. We are aware of, (and actively working against), the tendency for outside help from an organisation like ours to create dependency – doing so much for people that they are not encouraged to work on ways of helping themselves. Farming God’s Way is a great tool for discouraging dependency and encouraging food security. It depends on working to a high standard, performing tasks on time and with minimal wastage. One of the important ingredients of successful, sustainable farming, is fertiliser. Most people think of fertiliser as a kind of boost for healthy plant growth. Whilst this is an important consideration it is equally important to recognise that applying inputs to the soil before planting is also enriching the soil. Sustainable soil management involves putting in as well as taking out. In FGW terms “you reap what you sow”. Sowing without applying fertiliser produces a poor yield and, in the long run, kills the soil. The problem I have been wrestling with is how poor farmers in our area can afford to fertilise their soil. So today’s revelation was very welcome.

We were digging a Well Watered Garden on Kennedy’s land today. Kennedy is one of the church leaders and he has one, small, skinny cow. To be fair to Kennedy most of the cows around our area are fairly small and skinny. Like all cows it does produce fertiliser – naturally - every day. I know because I went round Kennedy’s fairly small piece of land counting the number of cowpats and termite mounds. This might seem like a peculiar obsession but it had a purpose. Manure and anthill soil, (our friends the termites again!), are both good farm inputs. Poor farmers’ inability to afford farming inputs is a constant complaint around Kenya – yet it lies around the fields uncollected and, therefore, unused. I did an experiment with one of the dried up cowpats. First I chopped it up with a panga, (a big lethal looking machete), and then put it into a 350 ml cup, (the amount of manure required to fill one FGW hole). One cowpat nearly filled the cup. So I added a bit more from the next cowpat and took my cupful of dried up cow poo back to our gang of trainers. Exhibit A!.

When we came to the part of the training that involved the fertiliser I got the team to duplicate my wander round the farm counting piles of poo. We agreed that there were about twenty. Going by my, admittedly slightly unscientific, experiment with the poo and the panga that would be enough fertiliser for about fifteen of the holes that we dug on the Well Watered Garden plot, (there are sixty-six altogether). A five-minute search for poo provided the Eureka moment for fertiliser. Follow the cow! We talked about how often a cow delivers a deposit each day. Four times seemed to be the general consensus. (We will have to conduct scientific research). At a conservative three times a day that means that Kennedy’s small, skinny cow will deposit three times ninety piles of poo by the end of February. At the end of February everybody around our area will be ready to plant their seeds for the long rains. That lead in time gives Kennedy fertiliser for at least two hundred holes – as long as he and his family develop a commitment to following the cow.

In our discussion Kennedy made the interesting observation that many local cattle owners graze their cattle some distance away from the land they grow crops on and therefore wouldn’t be able to collect the manure they create. “What should they do?” he asked. “Take a bucket and spade with them”, I replied. This caused a bit of amusement initially but then, (I think), it began to dawn on people that a fantastic, free, source of fertiliser is being systematically wasted - fertilising rough grazing grounds. I don’t know whether the idea will catch on but I think it should. If we and our Kenyan friends want to escape the dependency syndrome we will have to work together to seek novel solutions. Following the cow might be one of them.