Back to the Beginning

Graham recently had a fantastic opportunity to take farmers into the forest and show them how God farms. Teaching conservation agriculture has been a bit of an uphill struggle because it is labour intensive. Had we come in with brand new shiny tractors, implying status and development, we may have had a large following in no time at all. But no tillage and covering everything with a mulch just doesn’t seem attractive to a lot of people; maybe because it looks untidy.

The day started with just two people, who are learning how to teach it and are very inspired, and one other who came along out of curiosity.

Graham continues the story...

As we drove down through the fields we picked up a couple of other farmers who left their work, intrigued by our trip. Were we really heading to the forest for some teaching on how to grow maize?

The track led through banana plantations and small fields of vegetables and maize and then we passed a bare, newly ploughed field and came to the edge of the forest. The huge trees seemed so tall all of a sudden and the shade swallowed us into its cool and peaceful interior where we stopped in a small open area.

I gathered everyone around and started by pointing out how productive and lush this forest was when the land beyond was so dry. Long lean trunks soared up into the upper canopy 60-70 feet above us supported by the upper branches which were festooned with creepers swinging down to the shrubby undergrowth and ending up rooted amongst the scattered seedlings and annuals on the forest floor at our feet.

I invited them to notice how untidy the area was. There were fallen trees, rotting logs and a carpet of twigs and debris from above. We walked under the canopy of a leafy shrub and squatted down and scraped away the dry surface mulch. The debris was dark and shapeless as it began to be broken down. The soil was friable and beautifully light. It was dark and slightly moist with the scent of humus. When we dug down a little further we uncovered slender white root filaments of things growing in amongst the rotting leaf litter and small bugs. I suggested they push their fingers in and see how far they could penetrate the soil and then asked them if they would like to have soil like this in their fields.



In the past people would cut down the trees, clear the undergrowth and grow three good years of maize before they had used up all the fertility. Then they would leave the land and move on. In the next ten years or so it would all slowly grow back, without their help, and gradually regain its former fine structure and fertility. But now, the soil is worked and worked and turned over until every last bit of natural goodness is used up.

Another interesting thing was that there were no erosion channels here and the water in the streams that flowed through this forest was relatively clear. In contrast the channels between their fields were filled with muddy brown water showing that erosion was taking place.

We moved out from under the covering of the forest into the glare of the midday sun and walked across the ploughed field. The bare earth was light in colour and scorching hot with a caked surface from where the last rain had fallen onto it. The clods that the plough had turned up were as hard as bricks and there was a flush of weeds pushing up through the cracks in the surface. There was little moisture in the surface layer and no evidence of any insect life. The field sloped gently down to the edge of the forest where a large area of silt had been transported. When we walked across towards the centre we came across a newly formed erosion channel, a few feet in depth revealing a scattering of stones and rocks.

The contrast was stark and needed little reinforcing. It was obvious to all that God was the better farmer and when we went into the classroom, understanding was already dawning.



This man has recently learnt the conservation method by following Graham for several weeks and was teaching here for the first time. He will take it to other areas where he is working and is already a strong and inspired advocate.

Another Demonstration Plot Prepared

Graham has been busy preparing more demonstration plots for the Foundations for Farming project. This one is 50 x 14m and took 8 people two days to prepare.



The sight of the 'man high' weeds to be cleared, nearly had everyone running off on the first day. It certainly produced demands for more money. Graham’s way of teaching is to work with a group of people on a plot teaching and chatting as they go. He pays a day’s wages to each one and their bonus is to learn the ‘secret’. On this plot he promised to double the wages if he dropped first – he being twice the age of most of them. Needless to say, no-one got double wages but Graham has no doubt taken twice as long as the others to recover!



Beginning of Day Two and it is finally cleared and ready for setting out. The first delivery of well rotted manure which was dug from a nearby boma is being unloaded. The maize either side of this plot has been planted the traditional way and will provide a good contrast, we hope, as this is the view from the main pathway into town.



Work is well under way with everyone doing their allocated job – either marking out and digging holes accurately or filling each hole with manure and seed bed fertiliser.



At last as night falls, all the holes have been planted and half have been covered with a blanket of the dead weeds. The weeds were a bonus after all as they provided an instant mulch. A crate of sodas was needed at this stage to encourage completion but in the end, everyone was very proud of their work and enthusiastic about the new method.

Demonstration Plot

A demonstration plot was given by Lesingo beside his boma. He announced that he was very happy that he was going to learn the ‘secret’ of the soil as he already knew the ‘secret’ of keeping cows.



The first job was to bag up lots of manure for the planting holes from inside the goat pen.



The next job was to dig the holes but although the ground was sandy it was as hard as rock about 6 inches down and the pickaxe handle was broken in the first half hour. The workforce was less willing at this stage!



But in the end, everyone was very happy with their efforts. Each hole was filled with goat manure and a sprinkling of seedbed fertiliser. It turned out that Lesingo’s only contribution to the process was to go round waking everyone up at dawn each morning! He then sat down for the rest of the day to watch the work and chat to the other elders. As soon as the rains begin in earnest, we will go back and sow the seed.

Agriculture

Africa is known as the world’s begging bowl - around 20 million tons of grain is imported annually. It is said that 85% of the continent’s population are subsistence farmers. Average maize yields amongst the poor are around 300kg/hectare and the food requirement for one person is 450kg per annum. Crop failure is common, largely due to drought, but also due to poor standards of practice. Crop failure and hunger impact health, family values and people’s well being. Communities and cultures change irrevocably as young people move away from the areas of hunger and failure, towards urban centres.


Our neighbour’s plot

All these problems are common to the areas where we work too and have inspired us to look into Foundation Farming (also known as Farming God’s Way) which comes within the overall umbrella of Conservation Agriculture. It is a method of farming that has been promoted over many years and aims to break the poverty cycle. It teaches stewardship and crop management made effective through following Biblical principles. It’s about life in Christ and farming as a practical expression of this. The four keys to success in this farming method are:-

 On time
 To high standards
 Minimal wastage
 With joy

It is ideally suited to the many subsistence farmers who live around us here in Northern Tanzania on their small plots of land. It is also suitable as a way of introducing pastoralists such as the Maasai to small scale agriculture as many of them are now using maize meal as part of their daily diet. We see this as an addition to their current way of life, not as a change.

Last year we established a demonstration plot on our property where we produced a very encouraging acre equivalent harvest of 16 bags compared to our neighbours’ 2 - 4 bag harvests.



In October, at the height of the drought, we started again and prepared the ground much to the amusement of our neighbours, and the embarrassment of our workers who were asked to do the work!



We planted after the first rain in November and our neighbours began to watch with interest as the maize took off. Still no-one else planted.

No-one is laughing anymore. We are expecting a good harvest and are hoping that our neighbours are watching with enough interest to come along to our next demonstration. We are also very much hoping to be able to measure our harvest before it ‘walks’ as few of our neighbours have planted and none with such success.