Agriculture
Agriculture
With the sustainability of the school project in mind, ADH as undertaken an agricultural project. Income from the agriculture should contribute long-term to finance the school operations. Currently domestic agricultural products are grown on a total area of 10 hectares and are sold at local markets. This helps the food-poor region and creates new jobs. The agricultural project also provides opportunities to involve the local community with the school project and teaches them to take personal responsibility for the school in Mushapo. The professional cultivation can also serve in the future for practical training.
May
2017
New concept for the agricultural project in Mabala
For the location of our new school project – “ADH Agro-Veterinary School of Mabala” – we chose a 40 hectare piece of land between the city Nioki and the village Mabala. This will enable pupils from both places to visit the school easier and the territory is big enough to teach agriculture on site. Since we had a lot of problems with theft in our former agricultural projects in Mushapo, Jean came up with a new idea which we already started implementing. We bought and transported (500 km by truck and boat) 500 kg of maize seeds to Mabala. These seeds are not genetically modified, but better quality than what the local population is using. We will give 5 kg to 100 families of BBK members, who are very excited about this boost in their lives and area. The plan is that they grow this maize on their own fields, which means less complicated for us and better protection of the products. At harvest time, hopefully they will each harvest 20 kg of seeds, from which they will keep 10 kg for themselves, give 5 kg to support the school and return the original 5 kg to be used for another 100 families. Corn can also be sold in Kinshasa as there is regular boat traffic between Kinshasa and Nioki, which could create some income for the school and the population. We hope, the project will offer needed education, create jobs, supply food for the people and income for different needs.
Oct
2016
Theft: a well-kown problem
Our school director Pierre reported that basically all the fruits from the land of SADR farm, which belong to us, were stolen, even before they were ripe. Also the pineapples which are growing on our school ground disappeared. It looks like hunger makes people desperate. We will keep looking into a solution to protect these fruits better in the future. Our teacher, Mr. Urban, is an agronomist who was working on the SADR farm. Since Jean left Mushapo, Mr. Urban is teaching the students agronomy. (Picture: school director Pierre in his office)
Mar
2016
Our agricultural project in Mushapo: a review
The land around the new school buildings towards the North, which was overgrown with tall elephant grass and bushes, got cleared to prepare it for a new agricultural project easier to guard in the close proximity to the school. One hectare of pineapples are planted and the first fruits have already been harvested – a big joy and encouragement for all. Besides the blessing of yielding needed food products for the hungry people there, this project is a great hands-on training ground for the older students as our secondary school emphasizes on teaching agriculture, something that can help the students to learn a profession which can feed them throughout their lives.
Mar
2015
At first: cultivation of pineapple
The new farming project has been launched. The new field was prepared for cultivation of pineapples previous month. It was hard to find new shoots in the area, because the old pineapple field was again destroyed by a bushfire. But Jean was able to organize shoots and so they were immediately planted. We are also planning to raise a solid “wall” of fruit trees in front the school building. Once these trees have grown, they are intended to break the strong north winds and as a consequence protect our new school buildings from storm damages.
Dec
2014
Agriculture - a new start
With our school we established in Mushapo a technical training center focused on agriculture. However, so far the integrated agricultural project did not generate the expected income to help finance the school. Still, it make sense to us, at least for pedagogical reasons, to have another go at it. Theft was one of the main reasons why the harvests of recent years were only moderate. To get a better handle on this problem, we decided to relocate the agricultural project. From now on, cultivation will take place on the, up till now, virgin grounds on our own area directly adjacent to the campus terrain. We hope that the new fields will be better protected in the presence of the school, with the teachers and students taking care of them. On the 10-hectare land area we want to grow again cassava and pineapple. To prepare the land for cultivation, the area which is overgrown by high elephant grass, bushes and small trees, is first cleared. The now better protected acreage, together with the input by Ing. Jean, an expert agronomist with many years of training and experience, also abroad, will provide the best conditions for the success of the new agricultural project.
Jul
2014
Our Manioc Harvest – the Result
The manioc harvest last month in Mushapo went very well under the supervision of our responsible manager Jean. The manioc was collected, peeled, placed for 3 days in water to remove the acid, dried and then packaged for sale in large 80 kilo sacks. Unfortunately, even with this crop of manioc some was stolen and sold in Mushapo below the usual price, so we were forced to sell our cassava in Tshikapa. Through the transport costs for the bike transporters was the income from the harvest this year of course lower than we had originally hoped.
Mar
2014
News from the manioc field
Jean, the farm manager, recommends to wait with the harvest of the five hectare manioc field that we planted over a year ago. This should yield a bigger harvest. We have to weed the new four-hectare manioc field this month, so that the harvest will not be endangered. Another setback: the 1.5 hectare field with thousands of young pineapple plants got burned - we lost the whole harvest! We have to find a solution to this danger.
Jan
2014
Sheep found dead
Jos travels to Mushapo to take care of some business. He takes food, drinking water and materials needed for our project. One morning we receive a message that three of our sheep were found dead. This is a terrible setback, since we didn’t know who is responsible for this. The members of the Committee found out in the post-mortem that the sheep ate plastic bags smeared with palm oil and salt.
