Agricultural Projects
Zambia
In May 2024, Drs. Alistair and Margaret travelled there to see the situation of the local people which has recently
become truly desperate. Unpredictable rainfall due to the El Niño climate phenomenon has led to over 50% of their crops being ruined.
One of our partners, Pastor Sonile, runs a school of 205 children that was started by her father in a poor rural area just outside Lusaka, the capital city. This school provides 2 meals a day,
breakfast and lunch, for the children, all of whom come from very poor homes. They also provide
complete care for 20 orphans. We paid for the school to plant maize at Christmas, but due to no rains their crop was a complete disaster.
They needed help in order to be able to feed the children until the next harvest which is not until March 2025! One longer term solution is to provide a borehole, which will enable them to grow crops throughout the year, even in the dry season. Jacob’s Well Appeal is in the process of drilling a borehole which will go a long way to providing food security in the medium-long term. However the children still need feeding, so we are also sending money to help purchase food now. The school also desperately need funds to help them rebuild housing for the orphans. The boys home recently collapsed and the boys are now living in the chicken coop!
Northern Ghana
We run a large seedbank in Ghana helping over 150 women and a very generous donor has provided tractors as well as a multisheller to help this project be successful. The harvest this year is better than last year, although the rains are so unpredictable that the communities struggle to plant the seeds at the best time. In the past when the rains started they did not stop. Now they stop and start. If you plant too early and the rains stops for a few weeks
before restarting you will lose your crop. If you plant too late you don’t get a crop.
We also run smaller seed bank projects with our partners SAC helping impoverished women grow soya, ground nut and bambura seeds. Last year the harvest was so bad that the beneficiaries hardly grew more than they planted. This year it has been much better and communities have really benefited from this input. We are very grateful for the hard work put in to these projects by our partners.
Dry season farming
We have been running several Dry Season Farming projects this year in very poor, remote areas of Ghana. York Viking Rotary Club supports one in Gogorinsa; Ripon Rotary club supports three community projects in Dodoma, Goriyir and Beeli and Skegness Rotary club supports the dry season farming project in Sing. Each project supports around 60 families. Traditionally, Africans only grow during the rainy season, leaving the land empty after harvest. The dry season farming projects have been extremely popular with poor communities, who soon notice the benefits of a more varied diet on the health of their children. It also gives the villagers work throughout the year and a supply of produce to sell at local markets. They have neither the equipment, seeds nor know-how to grow crops in the dry season without external help. Also, as the goats run free, they are unable to afford fencing to keep their crops safe. However after an initial project where they are helped with fencing, training, equipment and seeds, these poor communities can continue the project without any external help.
All these projects need continual monitoring, training and input, which means that one of our partners has to go and visit these very remote places. There are no tarmac roads, and journeys involve bumping along rutted dirt tracks for hours. We have recently purchased a motorbike for one of our partners, Ruby Yap, from Sahara Advocates for Change, which will enable her to get around these villages much more cheaply and easily.