A Day to Celebrate Farmers

Today is Nane Nane (eight-eight), a national holiday in Tanzania to celebrate the important contribution of farmers to the Tanzanian economy. 80% of people in Tanzania are subsistence farmers, so it is a significant day! And so today, we want to recognise and honour the farmers we are working with in the conservation agriculture (CA) project. We are so privileged to know the farmers in our Agricultural Groups. So many of them are resilient and generous people who live on so little and are grateful for so much. These farmers depend on what they grow to live. Their children depend on it. And there you see the risk they must take when they try something new with us!

Mama Adella in the Lutale village CA Group

But with the CA techniques that they are learning (minimal tillage, cover crops and mulching, crop rotation and timing of planting), many farmers are now seeing the positive difference it makes to their land and their harvest. What started very slowly with a few farmers in Kayenze four years ago, has now grown and spread through the different TAG churches we are working with. We are now working with six groups in six villages with five more groups starting this month. Well over a hundred farmers have been directly trained, with more farmers through the groups themselves.

We are thrilled that with Pastor Amon, the Kayenze Church (which has increased more than fourfold) is now taking on completely the CA Project for that area. We will celebrate the handover of the project next month with a feast and then they will be teaching the new groups starting in that area this year! As the other different churches develop demonstration plots, people in their local area come with questions to find out more. More groups are formed for training and individual families see the benefits of good soil, more food and extra money. Certainly these farmers are making a difference!

Now meet a few of the farmers who are making a difference in Tanzania!

Joseph Hatari in Igumumoyo

Joseph (centre) with our trainers, Elisha (left) and Peter (right)

Joseph is leading a small church in the village of Igumumoyo (Swahili for "hard-hearted") and both he and his lovely wife have such a heart to serve the people here and see the village take on new meaning!

Igumumoyo Church

The Demonstration Plot at the Church

We enjoy time spent with this lovely family! Last time we visited, after lunch we enjoyed exchanging games drawn in the dirt! Materially, the people of this village have very little, but they are certainly rich in many ways!

We had such fun teaching them how to play hopscotch after lunch!

And then they taught us a game similar to our English game of "Jacks"

Joseph's wife, Mama Daniel is an entrepreneurial farmer alongside her husband! She works so hard tending a shamba of tomatoes. Weeding, protecting, watering in harsh conditions. Twice a week she has been walking to a larger village to sell her tomatoes for the day.

Harvesting tomatoes with baby Daniel, their miracle baby.

Joseph has done well working the Demonstration Plot in Igumumoyo! He encourages the 27 farmers part of the CA group in the village. With the CA group here, we have also this year given training on the Push-Pull Technology to help drought-affected crops (see a previous blog post on this!)

Mama Veronika

One of the farmers in the Igumumoyo CA group is Mama Veronika, a farmer and mother to nine children, who has struggled to provide enough food for her family. She is already experiencing the benefits of increased harvests … and the one she mentioned to us, was the benefit of joy in the home!

Mama Veronika (top right) with a neighbour and five of her children

Peter Myuhudi in Chabakima

Peter lives with his wife, and two children in Chabakima, one of our most recent villages to work in. Our first year has been a real struggle with the demonstration farm neglected and ineffective. We doubted whether Peter would ever be able to carry the project. He just wasn't committed to making it work. However now it is a different story! We are delighted that as we have built relationship, Peter has caught the heart and vision of what we are doing and is now adopting the project with his small church. This year he is keen and excited to transform the church plot. He is planting jackbeans and maize, pigeon peas and other nitrogen-fixing crops! He is encouraging other farmers in his village and we have a new group of farmers coming together this week in Chabakima for the CA training seminar and then preparations will be underway for planting in October.

Tim with Peter, planning the Demonstration Plot at the Church

Jackbeans and harvested maize

Tito in Nyamililo

Tito is a wonderful father figure leading the church in the village of Nyamililo. This man was struggling to produce enough food when we first met him two years ago. He has been hugely supportive of the CA project, faithfully working on a very good church demonstration plot and training and encouraging others. This year, with his church hosting the training seminar for new farmers, he will teach half of the material, helped by our trainers. Elisha manages the work in this village and is excited this year to start an Agri-business arm to the project. In September, they will start a cooperative with 9-10 members to grow profits.

Tim, Tito and Elisha inspecting the Church Demonstration Plot

The Demonstration Plot at the Church

Tito and his wife have also personally benefited from the CA farming. He has been able to harvest much more than ever more. He has diversified and harvested peanuts, maize and soy beans. With the extra yields, he has been able to sell for profit and worked on building a brick house for his family! We love his family too! His daughter, Phoebe long struggled to have a child with many miscarriages. Amisadai in particular was drawn to pray for her last year and a few months ago, she gave birth to a healthy son, whom they named Elisha! 

Tito's original mud hut with the newly built, 

ever-improving brick house with tin roof on the left!

Phoebe with baby Elisha

Tito intercropping his maize with peanuts

Shadrach

Another farmer in the Nyamililo farmers group has been an exceptional asset to the community! When we first started the project in this village there was much doubt and resistance to planting jackbeans (an inedible legume that is hugely beneficial to the soil as nitrogen-fixing). Farmers questioned putting "poison" into the soil. But Shadrach gave it a go. And now we see the huge transformation … he is planting whole fields of jackbeans! He is harvesting and selling them to the other farmers who now also see the benefit they have on the soil for their other crops! Another farmer making a difference in Tanzania! 

Peter Beatus with us! 

We also want to recognize the amazing work Peter is doing training these farmers. Peter has been working with us for four years and is now managing the CA Project. He works well with the local pastors and now also with the help of Elisha (CA and Entrepreneurship) and John (CA and Beekeeping). Peter has been a huge asset to the CA project! And as well as all the work he does for us, he has also started beekeeping in his home village, passing on his knowledge from the beekeeping project to others who are managing the hives for him. He has also this year just opened his own café, which is serving good food in a clean and inviting environment near one of the villages we are working! We all enjoyed tea, chapatis and maandazi there before going on to the church service in Chabakima last Sunday!

Peter teaching CA at the Church and Transformation Seminar last week

Peter with John (L) and Elisha (R) teaching practical CA at the Seminar

So on this eighth day of the eighth month, celebrate with us the difference these farmers are making for their communities in Tanzania!

So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul— then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Deut. 11:13-15

Heart of a Village

Igumumoyo.

"The hard-hearted village".

We were the first to arrive for the Sunday service in Igumumoyo

It sounds terrible doesn't it? Who would give a place, a home, such a name? But this is the name of the new village we have started working in. Pastor Joseph Hatari (whose name incidentally is the Swahili word for danger!) explained the meaning of their village name... "people who are told but refuse to listen". He doesn't know how the village came by its name but is going to find out.

In reality, our experience of the people in Igumumoyo has been very far from hard-hearted. And the pastor is far from a dangerous man! The warmth and love shown from the people in their welcome to us has been a humbling example of warm, kind hearts. It was really special to worship with this church this morning. Only six adults and a good number of children were gathered in the small patch of shade under the tin shelter this morning. But the singing was lively with gusto and with no walls on the building there is plenty of room for growth!

Tim preaches on Isaiah 42

Time of prayer

After the service, we walked the short path back through the growing crops to Joseph's house for lunch. Mama Laurensia was helping Joseph's wife, Zena, prepare the food. This lovely woman has had nine children and lost three. We shared hot chai and rice and beans together and enjoyed getting to know each other better!

Joseph and Zena (left) with Louisa holding their baby Daniel

Louisa with little Daniel

Igumumoyo is a small and materially poor community of subsistence farmers. We trained 27 farmers from the village in September on the basics of conservation agriculture and are now working closely with those keen on developing the practice. The first planting after that training did not go so well. Most farmers failed to follow instructions and were far too late to plant. With crops now still struggling in the ground during the second rains, they are unable to get a second planting. But they understand well now! And we are doing our best to help them find available land to put the CA techniques into practice for a small second attempt. Our agricultural trainers, Peter, John and Elisha are doing a great job training and getting alongside farmers to help them. And the church together has now planted a demonstration plot with a variety of crops including intercropped maize and jackbeans, pigeon peas and choroko (green gram bean) on their property and the hope is that this will draw people to find out more!

Prayer for this plot of land

This afternoon we also went to visit Mama Mary. This is one lady who did very well after the first training! She demonstrated some great intercropping of maize, peanuts, African eggplant and pumpkins. She was able to harvest in January and has already planted again.

Mary with a good harvest!

Peter with Mary's successful maize before harvesting!

Here you can see the struggle.

Late planting and bad spacing contributed to a poor harvest here

Pastor Joseph with Reubeni, another of the farmers in the group

We are excited to be partnering with this church! Pray for Joseph and Zena as they reach out to serve their community. Our prayer is that this village would be transformed by God's grace and become known as Nyamamoyo, the village of those with a tender loving heart of flesh!

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;

I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26

When 20% isn't Failure

It was Friday last week and Tim had planned to go to Nyamililo, the new village near Sengerema where Esther has been working hard to start the new agricultural group. He was going with Baraka and Peter but as is often the way, things didn't go exactly to plan as Peter missed the boat! There was confusion at the ferry as Baraka and Tim looked for Peter. After some searching, they made phone contact and knew he was around somewhere. As the boat was bellowing its final call to board, assuming that Peter must have boarded the boat, they hopped on and sailed away. But he wasn't. Peter was caught up helping someone and as Tim later found out, he had ended up going to the police station with the person he was helping. Never a dull moment!

Talk of the Drought

Talking to people as the drought continues, many can't remember a year worse than this one. They have never known the price of maize (used to make ugali, the staple food here) to be as high as it is now. The people we are working with are all subsistence farmers; they eat what they grow, surviving from their own shamba (piece of land).

The maize crops, ideally planted early in October are harvested in January. This season is now over and there is very little, if anything in places, to show for it. But as we said in a recent post, it is wonderful to see the positive difference for farmers who have adopted the practices we are teaching! And even more to see the interest of other farmers in the community who see that difference in this drought and are keen to join in!

When 20% isn't Failure!

Tim and Baraka met on Friday with seven of the fifteen farmers who formed the first Conservation Agriculture (CA) group with us in this area. Only three of these fifteen farmers have been successful ... which in percentage terms may sound like failure! But as we know from experience, the first year teaching something new and different is always tough. People are wary and not keen to commit their efforts. Most didn't give the CA techniques a fair test as they did things the way they were used to or first planted their regular crops in the usual way and delayed working on the CA section. One lady in the group, had prepared really well but then travelled and asked her relatives to finish the planting. All that hard work was wasted as the relatives planted in the usual way!

Baraka (L) with five farmers from the group

But when people see and experience something firsthand ... then things can start to change! And so having these three farmers is reason enough to be thankful! And we now have some good community trainers who will be far better teachers than us!

Pastor Tito of Nyamililo welcomed the group members and after reading and discussing together Psalm 67, they began to talk about how things were going. The first two farmers (whose maize had died out), were unhappy and didn't see the project working. Three others farmers joined the conversation. They had also lost their crops, but they realised that they had made mistakes and were keen to try again and follow through on what they had learned. They were grateful. Lastly, the two farmers who had been successful (the other, Anna, was unable to be at the meeting) shared. Pastor Tito and Shadrach expressed their great gratitude, particularly for all Esther's work. Pastor Tito who has used the church land as a demonstration plot shared how people were coming to see the field, just amazed at its success in this season of drought. Many were coming to the church asking questions. This is amazing progress before a year is done!

Tito

The group went outside to look at the work Pastor Tito had done at the church shamba. The maize planted early on intercropped with beans was doing really well! It was clearly better than the area planted later which missed that essential early rain.

Pastor Tito with his maize

These jack beans were planted too late to do their job.

Poor Pigeon Peas Prove Popular

The pigeon peas are now a big hit with these farmers! We laugh about the pigeon peas. No one ever wants to plant them; everyone says they don't like to eat them. The fact is, they are just "different" and no one wants to try. Even Joseph, our guard, for the longest time said he couldn't eat pigeon peas for his lunch; he didn't like them at all. Finally one day, I just gave him some and said it was that or nothing ... much like I can say to our girls! Well, he ate them and really enjoyed them and later admitted he had never actually tried them. And we find it is similar for the farmers who are not keen to plant them at all! But pigeon peas are so easy to grow and good for the soil. They are drought-resistant, providing a nutritious and extremely long-lasting plentiful harvest! Now having tried them, the farmers are already planning their plots for more pigeon peas!

Pigeon peas doing well at the church shamba!

Shadrach's 'Spot the Difference' Shamba

The group moved on to look at Shadrach's shamba. It is not as strong as Pastor Tito's (or his own other shamba farther away) but he will be able to harvest. The group was able to clearly see and discuss the comparison between the section on the left farmed normally and the area on the right farmed at the same time with the same seeds using the CA method.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE!
Shadrach's shamba. Healthy green maize on the CA right side!

So while a 20% success rate may at first seem more like failure, we are all encouraged! Pastor Tito is a good teacher! It is fantastic to see people coming to the church with questions and to see the church reaching out to their community with help and answers in this time of need. Tito is now preparing his next sermon for the church on Psalm 67. As they experience God's gracious blessing, their prayer is that He may be known in their community, that people would thank and enjoy Him!

God, mark us with grace and blessing! Smile!
The whole country will see how you work.

Psalm 67 (MSG)

The Difference in Drought

Spot the Difference!

Dry. Hot. As I sit here in the relative cool of the house, the sun is burning down on the ground outside. Flies are buzzing and the stench of an unfortunate dead dog rotting somewhere on the road outside is wafting in on a breeze. 

As I mentioned in the last post (When you're Down in a Ditch), people are saying that this is the worst year for rain in over fifteen years and everyone is talking about it. Indeed, the situation isn't good but if you look at the photo above, you can see it's not all bad! What's the difference? Read on!

As Tim drove out to Kayenze with Peter last week, they drove by field after field of dead and dying crops. Each field represents a farmer and a family. A year's worth of food for a family now gone. It is a terrible and depressing sight.

They went first to meet Shija in Kagee (this new village joined the project in July). Despite, the difficulties, it is amazing and encouraging to see the difference made through the project. Shija followed the basic conservation agriculture (CA) principles of sowing early, using compost and plenty of mulch and the difference is staggering. Last week he harvested his maize and beans! He did this this without any watering whatsoever ... just making the most of every drop of rain by timing and conserving moisture in the soil through mulch. 

Jeneroza (who is also our beekeeper group secretary) also joined the agriculture group this year. She has worked hard, using the principles taught and even carried water from the lake 3-4 times a week to water her field by hand. And she is seeing the difference; she has already been able to harvest maize and beans!

Jeneroza and Peter

Tim and Peter went on to Lutale (you may remember our Lutale farming mamas) Even without watering, these women have been able to get a harvest. The jack beans did really well despite the conditions and through intercropping with the maize, they have provided an amazing cover crop or blanket to hold in the moisture and keep off the sun (as well as replenish the soil).

Mama Aneth's is being harvested. You can see the mulch and the cover crop

of jack beans helping this maize survive just long enough in order to harvest!

Tim and Peter shared chai with Mama Naomi (one of the Lutale farming mamas) and were pleased to see how well her jack beans had done and that she also had been able to harvest something. It wasn't much, but a great deal more than everyone else who lost entire crops.

Mama Naomi's jack beans (see the difference from November here!)

It isn't all bright stories. Samson (who is also one of our beekeepers) has lost everything. He was too late. He did get mulch down, but he was far too late to plant and he has learnt his lesson the hard way. Missing those early rains, has made all the difference. His maize is tasselling early and none of it will now survive. But he knows now. And he is already encouraged and excited to make the changes and do better next year!

Samson's maize farmed his usual way

Samson's CA section of field, planted far too late.

It's not good, but you can still the difference the mulch made!

It is also sad to see our Demonstration Farm at Kisesa struggling. Even doing everything we could, it has been drier there than anywhere and there is a very small harvest. The pigeon peas seem invincible like ours at home (our girls are really tired of eating pigeon peas!) and the canavalia beans doing well, but the mukuna beans are drying out and the jack beans not spreading the cover we need. But despite it all, Joseph has been faithfully putting out water for the bees, and they are all still there!

When we work with farmers on this project, we ask them to practice these principles of conservation agriculture on a section of their land. Many are naturally wary and do not want to risk their whole shamba (field) and so will continue to farm as they usually do on the rest of their land. This year, our farmers got nothing at all from the rest of their land. The difference is dramatic.

And that is the difference you see in the photo of Jeneroza's field at the top of this post. The section of land on the right was farmed with CA methods. The plants are tall, green and strong with a harvest of maize. The section on the left was farmed at the same time in the same field, but it's all now dead. The difference is also starkly evident at Mama Aneth's farm.

Peter stands where Mama Aneth harvested her crops farmed with mulch and intercropping

Immediately adjacent is the maize she lost at the same time from farming conventionally

This last picture is true for most people in this area. A bleak picture with nothing to harvest this year. But looking at the CA group farms, the people in the community can see the difference. Many people are now very keen and excited about joining the conservation agriculture project!

So, while the drought across Tanzania this year is still a terrible thing, in these little fields in these small village communities, there is hope making a difference!

Incredible maize for this year!

May God be gracious to us and bless us
    and make his face shine on us
so that your ways may be known on earth,
    your salvation among all nations.

May the peoples praise you, God;
    may all the peoples praise you.
May the nations be glad and sing for joy,
    for you rule the peoples with equity
    and guide the nations of the earth.
May the peoples praise you, God;
    may all the peoples praise you.

The land yields its harvest;
    God, our God, blesses us.
May God bless us still,
    so that all the ends of the earth will fear him

(Psalm 67)

Farming Cha-Cha-Cha

Tim has been doing the cha-cha-cha on the Conservation Agricultural (CA) Project, focussing on getting new groups of farmers together for the next training which will start in September. As is often the way, it sometimes feels a little bit like doing the cha-cha-cha with “one-step-forward, two-steps back” (or is it two-steps-forward, one-step-back?)

Whatever the steps, Tim arrived in Kagee (a sub-village of Kayenze) last Monday for the village meeting being planned by the village chairman. He wasn’t happy to get all the way there to find that it had not actually been planned at all and so no one was there. They rescheduled for the following day, planning that Esther would go. But when Esther arrived on Tuesday, she was told there was a “msiba” (bereavement) thus everyone was off paying their condolences. After our third failure on Friday, we wondered if we would ever get another group together from Kayenze! Cha-cha-cha.  But then we had a forward step on Tuesday. A huge number of people turned up from Kagee, all interested in joining the new training group. We are only looking for thirty! The first approved thirty to forty farmers from both sub-villages of Lutale and Kagee to prepare their fields are in! That's the weeding and mulching quick-step for them. Cha-cha-cha.

We are also excited about the possibility of a new CA group starting up in a Nyamililo, a village in the Sengerema District, about 20km away on the other side of the Gulf of Mwanza. From talking to Pastor Tito Samwel there, it is a needy area agriculturally and by working through the church, the project has great potential to help the community. Training here will also start in September.

We are really pleased to be starting to work in the Sengerema District. Also in this area, we have connected with an American missionary (and an expert in soil science) doing similar work to us. Tim, Esther and Amon went last week to look at some of the farms and meet with farmers he is working with. He is currently working on pulling together CA trainers working in the Lake Zone to share ideas and experience.

Looking at the difference in the soils.
The handful on the right, from the CA field,  is rich in compost
material after being replenished through cover crops.
 The handful on the left is regular soil from an adjacent field.

Makuna in the demonstration plot

 

Maize growing with a cover crop of jackbeans

 

This is a shelter used to dry and store the harvested crops

Buzz on the Bees

On Tuesday, while Esther was in the Kagee village meeting, our family was also in Kayenze, with the beekeepers. We had our last beekeepers meeting before Julian, our bee expert, arrives from the UK to do the honey harvest training (theoretical and also we trust, practical!)  

Chai and maandazi with the beekeepers group

We have been doing the cha-cha-cha with the bee project too! We sadly lost two hives recently in Kayenze to the sisimizi (small ants). After the vandalism of a hive earlier, this was a gutting two steps backwards. But we keep looking and moving forward and after stressing the importance of greasing the wires holding the hives in the trees to keep the ants at bay, we went to see the hive at Amos's farm which is busy with bees.

We drove as far as we could up the rocky track. Then continued through the fields on foot, pleased to the see the progress with Amos' pigeon peas and jack beans (he is also in the agricultural group). He also has some great mango trees and the hive tool came in useful for peeling and cutting the mangos that Pastor Amon knocked out of the trees for Amisadai and Louisa to eat!

Out to the hives

Rachel and Amos check the hives

 

Back to the car