Kipanga-Lake Park Luth.,, CVP Report Mar 22-2011

2011 CVP
1st Visit, Year one
March, 22 2011


Village Kipanga
Pastor Wilbert Kidibule
Companion Lake Park Lutheran Church
Attendees 65
Elevation 1823
Weather Rainy
Reporters Nafeti, Gabriel, Roger, Rev. Lunodzo and Pongolani

Purpose of the visit
• Introducing the CV project to the congregation
• Taking the soil samples for soil analysis
• To deliver box file and a hand hoe
Topics
1. Introduction
Rev. Lunodzo Mang’ulisa delivered greeting from DIRA, introduced the Ag Institute stuff and encouraged people to participate fully in the project. Roger gave the greetings from St. Paul Area Synod and Lake Park Lutheran Church and went through the practices we teach and recommend on our demonstration plots. Roger also explained the relationship we are trying to establish with the pyrethrum company of Tanzania and encouraged farmers to grow the crop because market for it is not a problem. We had also representative from the Lake Park Lutheran church who attended the training and soil sampling.

2. Handouts
The handouts were distributed to all then reviewed
• CVP Plot record of events
• DIRA – Institute of agriculture agreement
• Chronological Plot Management of Crops handout
• CVP Instruction – 1st Visit

3. Agricultural background of this area
During our meeting we had participants from two villages Kipanga and Ihimbo. Kipanga village has a population of about 2861 people and 552 families while Ihimbo village has a population of about 2001 people and 400 families. The two villages have the same kind of climate and they usually grow the same kind of crops.
Crops which are grown in the area include corn, beans, wheat, peas, finger millet, groundnuts, pyrethrum, sweet and Irish potatoes, bananas and sunflower. They grow local varieties of corn and beans and we told them that we are going to plant different varieties of corn (Improved corn varieties) in the demo plot. They harvest an average of 2-4 bags of corn per acre and beans average of 4 tins to 2 bags. We also told them that using our practices we expect to harvest more than 20 bags of corn per acre and more than ten bags of beans per acre.

4. Soil sampling
After the meeting in the church we went outside the church and together with the
Members of congregations we took soil samples from 4 points around the church.
Two types of samples were taken, from 6 inches depth and 12 inches depth. The
Samples will be taken to the laboratory for analysis

Comments/questions from audience
1. The area is highly infested with weeds and underground shoots. With minimum tillage how are they going to control these types of weeds?
In the new land, digging the weeds and spreading them under the sun is probably the good idea. After starting farming the land, monthly weeding by clipping the weeds especially during the dry season with a lot of sun shine will help to reduce the creeping weeds infestations.

2. They have two growing season in the area so are going to have demo plots in both seasons?
We are going to plant the demo plot during the season where most of the farmers grow crops. But the practice which farmers learn will be able to applicable even during the other growing seasons.

3. In case if they don’t burn crop residues they get some white corn in their farms.
We are going to use improved seeds and we think that will also be due to nutrients deficiency which will be solved through the use of fertilizers.

Conclusions
We left the parish and told them that we will be back in August this year to measure the plot and in October we will bring them soil analysis results and inputs for the demonstration plot.