Mwatasi July 22, 2010

2010 CVP
Companion Village Project
Visit Report
6th Visit Year Two
July 22, 2010


Village Mwatasi
Pastor Elias Kadinde
Companion Trinity, Stillwater, MN
Attendees 5
Weather for the past month Cloudy and Rainy
Reporters Ibrahim, Gabriel and Lunodzo

In this visit we were accompanied by Mr. Greg Grothe from Thrivent who is dealing with micro-finance program in Iringa. The Mwatasi village has been spitted into two villages now. There are two local governments governing the villages. Both of the village leaders from these governments attended our demonstration today.

Purposes of the visit
• To collect the yield measurement
• To deliver grain storage chemical “Shumba”
• End of season discussion and planning for the next farming season
Topics
1. Review of the handouts
• 6th Visit instruction handout
• Yield recording sheet
2. Harvesting
Corn has been harvested. Unfortunately they did not count number of plants in 10m rows. Beans have not been harvested yet.
Amounts in bags/plot
( ½ Acre) Yield in 10m in 3 lines( For further analysis) Remarks
Corn 5 bags 2 tins Litres 2.5 6 10 Yield higher than local varieties
No. of plants Yield has been reduced by rotting
Beans Litres
No. of plants

3. Storage
We instructed them on how to store grain for home usage and for selling at the time of high price. We instructed how to mix grain storage pesticides “shumba” and the appropriate volume of grain per bottle recommended. We left the pesticides to them to mix with their harvested grains.
4. Discussion about the farming season
• Corn
The corn variety (H614) planted in the demonstration plot somehow tolerates continuous rainfall of this area. However they had to harvest earlier before complete drying because some of the ears start to rot. The variety yield 2 ears something which the villagers were happy about. However spacing were longer that what we recommended, that has somehow reduced the yields here.
• Beans
The bean variety “Uyole 98” performs better here. The variety tolerates continuous rain and coldness. The bean plot has not been harvested yet however they expect to get high yield.

Comments/questions
 We taught them that the wider spacing than what recommended and rotting have significant reduction in the yield.
 The Parish members said that the variety performs better than the local ones. They were glad that they are getting farming training and hope to improve their yields in the future. They express their sincerely gratitude to the Institute and their companion congregation for the demonstration plot and training visits to their village.

Conclusion
We encourage them to store their grains for the high pricing season. Moreover we told them to start thinking of forming cooperatives so that to get good price in the grain market and acquire loans from financial institutes.