Ugesa - CVP Visit Report - Oct 25-2012

CVP - PCT Companion Village Project 3nd Visit, Year Two October 25, 2012 Village Ugesa Coordinates S 07o44.477’ E 035o43.515’ Pastor Pascal Fyataga Companion Christ Lutheran Attendees 20 Weather for the past month Dry Reporters Gabriel, Phil and Happy (an Intern) Purpose • Delivering seeds and fertilizers • Demonstrating planting and fertilizer application Introduction It was decided that the pyrethrum demonstration plot is going to be added in this village as part of the program. The pyrethrum plot will be sponsored by Pyrethrum Company of Tanzania (PCT). The pyrethrum nursery will be established here nd from there the seedlings for demonstration plot will be obtained. However, other parish members may take the seedlings from this nursery. The demonstration meeting was conducted in the church. Phil delivered greetings from Christ Lutheran and US adversary comettee. Happy (an intern from Tumaini University) spoke about the importance of entreprenaureship among the villagers. Topics • Review of the handouts The handouts contain instructions were reviewed - 3rd Visit Instruction - Plant population and Fertilizer applications - Fertilizer needs template • Demonstrations o Planting and fertilizer applications Demonstration on how to plant and apply fertilizers was conducted. They participated in the demonstration as few of them were left to try and show others. • Pyrethrum Pastor said there are pyrethrum growers in this areas. The demonstaton plot will help them to learn better practices of managing the pyrethrum farms. • Seeds and fertilizers The following were delivered Corn Seeds Bean Seeds Fertilizers Variety Amount (kg) Variety Amount (kg) Type Amount (bags) TMV 8 Uyole 96 40kg NPK 4 Discussion Last year corn crop did not perform as good as expected, we discussed with the farmers that we are going to try new corn variety this year. Corn variety provided this season is TMV. This variety does well in area with high attitude like here. Questions/comments: • Farmers said that the main problem fo their village is marketing of the their crops. They said that since hey are located far from Mafinga/Iringa, they have to sell their crops to the middle man with very low prices. They can not transport their crops to Mafing ecuase of the high transportation crops We told them that marketing is a common problem in many distant located places. We can not promise to help them in finding the better market of their produceor facilitate transport to town but we advised them to try group marketing. When they are in groups they can even reduce transport cost. All in all something has to be done here to facilitate marketing of farmers’ produce • They said that they expectation that SACCOS will help them to improve their lives We told them that we, the institute of Agriculture and Institute o Microfinace of Tumaini University will continue to work to gether to make sure that the agriculture training going together with microfinance supporting activities • Fertilizers are very expensive here. We request you to help us in getting agro dealers who will be willing to ship fertilizers up to here. Its true due to the distance your village is located, the transportation costs must be high hence fertilizer prices will also be high. You may try group purchase and see if that will help to reduce prices. We will talk with YARA company (fertilizer distributing company) to see if they will be to transport fertilizers up to here. Conclusion We had a good meeting here. Farmers were very active during the meeting and later very cooperative during the demonstration session. All the demonstrations were done by farmers them selves showing other farmers.