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CORAC has been facing several issues around the output of farming programmes, mainly due to having their demonstration farm 12km away from the town and people not being able to get to their assigned demonstration plots often enough. The theory was to have people farm together so follow up was easier, but they have now understood that this is not possible. People were also given small loans for seeds and inputs but due to the bad results these loans were not all paid back.
Barnabus has now decided to rethink the whole programme and to focus on people having kitchen gardens at their own small more rural house plots. They have started this new model by sending 10 people to attend a training at GLO at the end of July which was focussed on compost, natural pesticides and vegetable growing.
Of the ten trained, five have been identified as leaders and will be asked to train 15 other neighbours and demonstrate what they have learnt. This will mean they have 25 people in total in the programme, five groups of five.
CORAC has a truck load of manure they purchased last year that needed to dry out which they will distribute, and they have requested a small amount of funds for seeds and some other tools required to .jpg)
make the bokashi fertilizer and natural pesticides (ZMW16,020). They do have some loan funds that have been returned to the partnership from the previous farming which they will also put towards this year's expenses.
Once the training has been undertaken and the inputs distributed, Barnabus will then focus on following up at the people’s places, including the other 15 neighbours they will train. The photo shows Barnabus with his own kitchen garden that he is using to show others what is possible with following the Foundations for Farming methods.