On the 17th and 18th of June, an agriculture training was held at Kachele farm in Zambia. Representatives from the community based organizations participated.
This training was coordinated By Samuel Zulu, Etienne Beaud and Chilufya Chama. The training started with sharing of the word by Etienne from Genesis, as the basis and foundation of farming in a sustainable manner. He spoke about restoring the broken relationship between God and man, man to man and man and his environment. This served as a platform for Samuel and Chilufya to build on. After he was done, Chilufya taught on nurseries and vegetable production; how to grow them and management using the principles of low cost, sustainable agriculture. With the high cost of seedlings, giving the attendees the skill to develop them, opened new possibilities in agriculture. Samuel taught on maize production addressing issues like soil erosion, fertility, cost effectiveness and labor savings. On this same day Etienne taught about the benefits of compost, and how to make it. The attendees had a chance to participate in making compost and, with the massive need for fertilizer in their context, were very excited about having access to their own.
In conclusion, the training was good and successful. The objectives for the training, set in conjunction with the attendees at the start of training, were largely met. From the feedback we got from the participants at the end of the training, the knowledge they acquired would help them. Because the time was short, there were things that came up during the evaluation that they so much wanted to learn and know. This gave us a platform of what kind of things to incorporate in the next training, as we saw the need for that.