Lulanzi - CVP Report Jan 21-2010

2010 CVP
Companion Village Project
Visit Report
4th Visit Year One
January 22, 2010


Village Lulanzi
Pastor Tuluwene Gavile
Companion Christ Lutheran, Lake Elmo
Attendees 10 (Including the Government leader- Village Chairman)
Weather for the past month Rainy
Reporters Ibrahim and Roger

There was a funeral going on in the village when we arrived there, one child of a church elder passed away, so knowing the importance of the training we offer, they organized some to attend the training and others to go to funeral. On our way back to Iringa we saw a lot of people coming from the funeral site.
Purpose of the visit
• Planting bean and fertilizer application demonstrations
• Demonstration on second fertilizers application in corn
• Deliver fertilizer bags, Bean seeds, bottle spray, and insecticides
Topics
1. Greetings
Roger gave greetings from Christ Lutheran Church, Saint Paul Area Synod and US Ag Advisory Committee
2. Went through the handouts
o 4th Visit handout
o Quiz handout
o Rain record sheets.
3. Demonstrations
We demonstrated how to measure inter row spacing (30cm). Using a string and a hand hoe it was demonstrated how to make a trench for planting the bean seeds. One seed was placed after every 10 cm. It was demonstrated how to place one full bottle cap of fertilizer between 2 seeds i.e. Seed-seed-fertilizer-seed-seed-fertilizer etc.

4. Fertilizer and seed delivery
According to the analysis of the soil of this area, the type of fertilizer recommended was NPK (10-18-24) for bean seed planting. The congregation was given 2 NPK bags and 30 Kg of bean seeds, variety of bean seeds delivered is URAFIKI. We also delivered 2 bags (50 Kg) of CAN for second fertilizer application to corn field.





Comments
 They planted corn on November 23rd, 2009 and 16 people participated during planting. First weeding was done on January 11th, 2010.

 Three people out of those attended the meeting have adopted the techniques taught. They have seen some benefits already such as planting corn without cultivating-saved money and control soil erosion because their farms are located in hills, un burnt crop residues smashed weeds growth.

Questions from audience and answers

 They asked that the fertilizer recommendation we instructed seems to be very high, if they can’t afford what do we recommend to them?
We told them and shared one of the handout we gave them during our 3rd Visit that if they don’t have enough fertilizer they are supposed to change spacing based on the amount of fertilizer they are able to apply i.e. 60 cm by 30 cm or 40 cm. This will give the plant population that will match with amount of fertilizer applied.

 What kind of insecticides are they supposed to spray their corn and beans field?
It is called THIONEX and is one of the best insecticides for both corn and beans. We showed them because that is what we delivered to them.

 Why when they plant corn will some germinate and other not?
This might be caused due by the use of unclean or untreated seeds; we recommended that they buy treated seed/hybrid seeds.

Should they keep weeding every month even if no weeds?
If the field have no weeds they don’t need to weed every month but we reminded them when they say no weed it should be no weed and not because weeds are shorter.

They asked, what is the status of DIRA’s SACCOS (micro finance) program
DIRA is still working to see what has to be changed or added to make SACCOS work properly. We told them that few days ago met a visiting Professor of Software from US who is now teaching at Tumaini University-Iringa for Six months who will also work at DIRA for SACCOS.

They asked if the Institute of Ag will only teach about Corn and beans only.
We told we will only demonstrate corn and beans for them, but if they have any question regarding other crops they should not hesitate to ask, so they asked a lot of question about Potatoes.

Conclusions/Recommendations
We emphasized the importance of following instruction because the success of the program depends upon them following what we instructed. They promised to follow all the instructions.