Seed Bank

The next problem comes with the financial outlay of seed.  Jacob’s Well loans 6 large bowls of seed to each woman in the village from our seed bank.  At harvest time they need to return 6 bowls which goes back into the seed bank.  They can keep the rest. This year we also used fertilizer, with the advice of the Ghanaian government, and the yield was significantly higher. The women ‘pay’ for the fertilizer by giving more seed. Without fertilizer the acre yields about 36 bowls, leaving the women with around 30 bowls. With fertilizer the yield was over 120 bowls – leaving the women with 100 bowls of better quality soya. After 3-5 years these women will become self sufficient so we can move on to find other communities to work alongside.