Graduation Day for the First Class of the Farmer to Farmer Soils Regeneration Project

Today was the final day of class, as well as,  the Graduation Day ceremony.  And, as a teacher, I experienced a first:   The number of students, the members of the Cooperative Diolinda Rodrigues, increased as the days progressed.  In all my previous classroom experiences, there is usually  some student attrition. I think this is because one statement was made which rang true to the Coopertive members, who, today, cannot afford chemical fertilizers. That is that in the past 100 years, the reality of  industrial farming is that farmers tend to the symptoms of plant malnutrition with expensive chemicals  in the same way year after year .  No matter what it is applied, it will be reapplied, usually in greater quantities with the next crop to be grown and so on. With organic agriculture the camponez strive to permanently  improve the condition and fertility of the soil  and the soil then tends to the needs of the plants. This is the way it has been for millions of years.

So, today the class started behind the Cooperative extension office at the raised bed that the Cooperative members had constructed the previous week   We reviewed the uses and benefits of green manures:  weed control, incorporation of organic matter, erosion control, fixing and/or bringing up nutrients from deeper deeper.  And then we planted by broadcasting some buckwheat seeds that I had located.  I demonstrated the broadcasting technique of one small handful per square meter on a small portion of our square meter site.  I then asked for four volunteers to repeat the methodology over the remaining areas.  One by one, they stepped forward, very hesitantly at first, to show the class their broadcasting prowess.  Each student did well and were rewarded with hearty applause.   We watered well, and spoke of the intense African sun,  We assigned responsibility for watering. And adjourned to the warehouse in the interior of the EDA complex where more learning was to take place.

The generator was located and a PowerPoint presentation and several videos were shown  .One video in particular showed not only the density of the buckwheat that grows, but what it looks like and and how to use it to start the next raised bed.  The class was astounded at how thickly buckwheat grows and how prolific are its seeds. Since neither buckwheat seeds, now any other green manure; alfalfa, clover etc; are not generally available in rural Londuimbali, it was solemnly agreed upon that the raised bed behind the EDA office, and any subsequent bed would become the seed beds of the Cooperative.  

Next came the Graduation ceremony.  Luciano Silva the Project Coordinator, had prepared diplomas that had been officially signed by both the Director of CNFA Angola and myself.   These were handed it in a ceremony that Luciano designed.  There seated among the bags of fertilizer and other chemicals that the government had provided to but which few could afford, the first organic agriculture class received their diplomas.  One by one the came up with great solemnity.  I think that they realized that their lives my have been changed forever.  After some snacks came a special reward.  We had brought other seeds not available to rural Angolans and the seeds these seeds were divided into equal mounds and distributed.   There were extra the buckwheat seeds, giant sunflowers seeds, heirloom Roma tomatoes seeds, and some very special seeds from a donor.  These seeds, originally acquired from the Japanese, give birth to a nitrogen fixing legume, a huge producer of bio-mass for composting, a cover crop, a highly nutritious animal feed, a plant that whose leaves have been researched to nbe an incredible 18% protein and 30% fiber - the Kudzu plant.  Patiently,  the CNFA team laid out 28 piles of seeds for each variety and each student filed up again and again to receive seeds, in samll cones made of scrap paper.   The camponez were particularly impressed with the Japanese Kudzu seeds, a much maligned plant in the United States because, it was explained, that it grows quickly and abundantly and that goats love it.  Unfortunately, kudzu seeds are very rare and each students only received 9 seeds.  

It was time to go and it became very emotional.  I had learned to love and respect these students.   Many of them live in houses of mud without modern conveniences but they carry themselves with great dignity.  They are so genuinely thankful to President Obama, with whom they feel shares their heritage and to the American people who, through US AID and the Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs, is helping them recover from a devastating civil war.  .  

The Angolan people have access to enough outside communication they know they are behind.  In terms of agriculture, the industrialized, mass production methodologies are not serving heir needs.  Even though Angola might be a petroleum producing nation, the reality is that Angola supplies the world a commodity product, crude petrolem.  The crude is refined elsewhere and is imported back into the country at world commodity  prices.  As the price of a barrel of petroleum continues to climb, the 85% of the Angolan population tat are subsistence farmers are priced out of the chemical market.  Industrial agriculture is not and will not work for them or anyone else for that matter.   According to the UN, the Industrial food system has already failed. http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16-49_agroecology_en.pdf/

The farmers who farm organically, or as my co-worker back in the North Carolina says, just good old fashioned farming, can undo the damage that has been brought on these people, first by civil war and then by bad "modern" agricultural information.    Contact Jerad Tietz at CNFA and he'll tell you how.  jtietz@cnfa.org