Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre

We spent the day with the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre. We arrived at 10am and they showed us around the training centre. We saw some demo plots of land where they are teaching local farmers to farm organically.





I've become fascinated by the total process over the last few visits to these
sorts of places. Most of the farmers coming here will have been used to using artificial fertilisers and pesticides until now. They now are taught to farm sustainably, using techniques developed over a long period of time and proven to work. The condition of the soils is improving and yields increasing at the same
time as reducing the costs of inputs. To small scale farmers this makes a lot of sense.

We were taken to a couple of nearby farms, one very small where the farmer and his family live in a bunch of mudhuts with straw roofs. Here the farmer showed us his different crops, including his cotton crop which had just been totally ruined by a bush fire which burned to within a few meters of his land. The soot from flames having dusted the cotton with black deposits making it worthless. Despite this the farmer was optimistic and saying how wonderful organic farming is.





The second farm we went to was much bigger but still small scale. Here the farmer had a much wider range of cash crops and had been experimenting with growing cotton. But the cotton market was so bad in the past couple of years he had decided not to grow any more as the price he can get is just too low.





This fella (Moses) is a relative newcomer to farming, having only been doing it for 10 years later in his life. But he was very innovative, using solar power to pump water from well to a tank for use in irrigation. They had no electricity on their farm, but did at least live in a brick built house with windows. His wife said she
dreams of having a refrigerator one day.

A fascinating day. And more of a similar nature tomorrow I believe leaving here early at 7.30am.

I've not been able to get a mobile phone connection to the UK this evening which feels a bit isolating. All I can get is "Your call cannot be connected at this time, please try again later." Very frustratingly I then managed to get through to the answer machine at home. The joys of long distance travel....