Letson Kachoranga in Lusaka
A few months ago, we introduced you to our grassroot trainer Letson Kachoronga, who was sent to Lusaka to work for SIFAT (Servants in Faith and Technology) who work in partnership with the Methodist Church. We visited him recently to see how he was doing with the project.
As we drove through the community to the church, many of the maize fields we passed looked as though they were lacking water and nutrients, and had been planted late – the plants were small and the leaves were yellow. As we reached Letson’s crops we were amazed, the demonstration plots that he has planted in front of the Methodist church really are a shining light to the community around. Even though he experienced poor germination with some of his soya beans and ground nuts, the plots still look healthy.
Letson shared with us that of the eight or so farmers he trained at the beginning of the season, all of them have adopted the teaching and have planted their maize using Foundations for Farming methods this year. Though there are weaknesses in mulching and weeding, Letson is pleased with the results that his farmers have achieved in their first year, and he is encouraging them to go the extra mile and weed more and find more mulch so that their results will be even better. Letson took us to see one of the farmers who has tried Foundations for Farming and his maize was twice as high as his neighbours’ and looking much more lush and green.
John, the pastor at the Methodist church has also adopted the Foundations for Farming teaching from Letson. John and his family have worked hard on a large plot of land, and he was proud to show us his crops. “I’m going to grow maize this way every year” John told us, “because look how great my crops look.” He took us to his neighbour, who normally gets the highest yields in the community, but his crops weren’t looking as good as John’s. John explained how his neighbour plants maize in the same place every year and that he needs to learn to do crop rotation. John is hoping that as he rotates his maize with his Soya beans next season, his neighbour will see the benefit, and start to practice crop rotation too.
Please continue to pray for Letson and John as they try to spread a message of hope through farming.
