Ipogoro CVP Report Jan 11-2010

2010 CVP
Companion Village Project
Visit Report
4th Visit Year two
January 11, 2010


Village Ipogoro
Pastor Nixon Mwitula
Companion Augustana
Attendees 17 (9 males and 8 females)
Weather for the past month Raining
Reporters Ibrahim, Gabriel, Roger and Alfred

Purpose of the visit
• Planting bean and fertilizer application demonstrations
• Demonstration of second fertilizers application in corn
• Deliver fertilizer, Bean seeds, bottle sprayer, and insecticide
Topics
1. Greetings
Roger gave greetings from Augustana, 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 we demonstrated how to make a trench for planting the bean seeds. One seed was placed every 10 cm. Using a bottle cap for measuring fertilizer, we demonstrated how to place one full bottle cap between 2 seeds i.e. Seed-seed-fertilizer-seed-seed-fertilizer etc.

4. Fertilizer and seed delivery
According to the analysis of the soil in this area, the type of fertilizer recommended was NPK (10-18-24) for bean seed planting. The congregation was given 2 NPK bags and 40 Kg of bean seeds, the variety of bean seeds delivered is WANJA-(drought resistance variety).




Comments
 Ipogoro is an urban congregation so many people work in the city; the pastor, and evangelists need to be teachers to others. On Sunday January 10th, 2010, one day before we went there, just after the Sunday service all people who attended went to the plot and the pastor was teaching them the agronomic practices we have been addressing. This is good to be happening and that is the reason why we have been insisting pastor and evangelists attend all meetings.

 On Jan 11th, 2010 during our meeting. Rev Nixon Mwitula was able to explain to other fellows who attended by saying if you don’t have fertilizer you need practice other agronomic such as proper timing, use proper spacing, don’t burn crop residues etc , this will help you to harvest more yield than if you couldn’t follow those agronomic practices.

 Iringa Municipality banned people from growing tall crops such as corn in the city. When the municipal officer saw the demonstration plot planted with corn they asked why they planted corn while it was announced not to plant. The Pastor answered that it is a demonstration plot; they went to the demonstration plot site and were impressed with what was happening especially when they also saw that it was documented in the box file. They promised to send some of their officers to visit Ipogoro to learn.

 One church member farms about 50 acres and would like to start using our methods to his farm, such as not to burn crop residue etc.

 We advised them instead of paying a tractor/ oxen to cultivate their field they should go for minimum tillage and use that money to buy fertilizer.


Questions from audience and answers

 How can they get inputs for their own farm?
They can get from stores in town, and in case of the bean seeds we gave cell phone number of the seed dealer (Uyole Research Farm)

 Somebody is grazing cow on his field because he leaves in town he can’t protect
If he knows a person around his farm that has cows, he should find a way to have some agreement to let him feed the crop residues and bring several carts of manure into the field.

 For those who already intercropped their farm, what can they do now and what kind of fertilizer should they apply?
NPK will be the best fertilizer and they were reminded for the next year they are supposed to plant one kind of crop per area

 In the past they have been using insecticides but still there were some crop damage
Reasons; Use of wrong insecticides, wrong amount and if there were heavy rain just after application of insecticides. One lady agreed that she was mixing insecticides in 15 liters instead of 18 liters of water.

 If they don’t have enough fertilizer as we recommend what they can do?
We suggested to them to use manure (compost) or to go for larger spacing that will give them maximum plant population per area.


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.