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.
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.
Dec
2013
Manioc is soon ripe
The manioc on our own land is growing well and can soon be harvested. We will increase the cultivation of manioc to another four hectares of land, hoping to generate more income for the school.
Oct
2013
Clearing the fields and increase in our animal population
The pineapple and manioc plants, which we took over from SADR are doing well. But we urgently need to weed the fields. Both fields should be ready to be harvested by the turn of the year. The animal husbandry is successful. One of the sheep bears a lamb and soon after, the second ewe bears two lambs, which brings our animal population to a total of 3 sheep and 3 lambs – a 100 percent increase within the last two months.
Sep
2013
Stealing - a great challenge
Stealing is a big problem for our farming project. Great parts of our harvest were stolen and we have now the same problem, which caused the agricultural company SADR to finally close their site in Mushapo. A friend from Kinshasa, Prof. Mpona who speaks the local language, Tshiluba, is helping us to solve this problem by giving stern talks to the inhabitants of Mushapo. He tries to impart that stealing from the fields means stealing from the school - in the end from their own children.
