RHCI’s Farm: 1st and 2nd Season
Abstract
Calvin was invited to work at the Rural Health Care Initiative (RHCI) to help advance the agricultural program in December 2020 and left in May 2021. While he was there his project was to create a 1.5-acre farm on a 3-acre plot of land that the RHCI owns. Calvin, with the help of Bill Pilacinski and Steve Clarke, decided to ditch local methods of farming and take advantage of the modern, advanced methods of farming created by Norman Borlaug. In 2022, the RHCI found it difficult to continue farming by themselves so they decided to partner with Growing the Grassroots to utilize our field manager, Edmond Jumu. In the meantime, we are developing our own two acres of land that we purchased in Tikonko. Under Edmond's supervision, the RHCI was able to grow groundnuts and maize. During the planting season in May 2022, the Growing the Grassroots board of directors took a trip to Tikonko to assist Edmond in planting maize while simultaneously educating 32 women on a comprehensive planting strategy for groundnuts and maize.
Calvin Is Invited to the Rural Health Care Initiative
In mid-2020, Dr. Gary Johnson invited Calvin to volunteer at the RHCI to see if there was any way Calvin could advance their agricultural program.
What Is the RHCI?
The RHCI is a birth-waiting home for pregnant women. Women from rural communities and villages are offered free transportation to the birth-waiting home where they stay for 2-4 weeks before giving birth. After giving birth, the mother and new child are safely delivered back to the community they came from. During their time at the birth-waiting home, pregnant women are offered 3 meals per day and educational courses about parenthood, nutrition, and healthcare.
Educating pregnant women at the birth-waiting home.
Outside of the birth-waiting home.
RHCI Farm in 2021: First Planting Season
Calvin's project for his 6-month stay was to develop permanent farmland from the bush in order to grow macro-nutrients, specifically proteins, for the pregnant women to eat. Calvin had help from the farmers, Patrick and Shaka, at the RHCI.
Preparing the Land for Farming
They started by burning the bush, de-stumping the remaining large trees, removing the stumps from the land, leveling the ground, and then building a fence. This sounds like an easy process but that alone took about three months to clear the 1.5-acres of land needed for the permanent farm. The only tools available were machetes and shovels so totally de-stumping and removing those trees from the land was quite a feat. We will go further into the details of this land-preparation process as we continue to develop our own 2-acres of land throughout the rest of 2022.
Progress of RHCI's land as the bush was slashed and burned.
Choosing What Crops to Plant
Once Calvin and the RHCI had the farm established, they had to decide what they wanted to grow and how to grow it. In order to maximize land space and efficiency, they had to use methods that were proven effective in other parts of the world. After discussion, groundnuts were chosen because they are rich in protein and effective methods for planting are available.
Who Is Norman Borlaug?
Steve Clark, a board member on RHCI’s Food Security Committee, is a Norman Borlaug Laureate through the University of Minnesota which places him as one of the top agronomists in the country. Normal Borlaug was an agronomist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for a lifetime commitment to feeding hungry people around the world. In 2006, Norman Borlaug won the Congressional Medal of Gold for saving around one billion people from starvation and death.
Norman Borlaug’s Methods Prove Effective
They used his methods for groundnut cropping last year which include: planting in straight rows with specific seed spacing, weeding throughout the season, and side-dressing fertilizer application methods.
The local average for groundnut yields in Sierra Leone is about 250 kg/acre. By applying Norman Borlaug’s methods to the RHCI farm, the team managed to harvest approximately 1,379 kg/acre at the end of the season. That is over 5-times higher than the local average. This was a significant accomplishment for the team, as this was their first time planting together.
FBO women creating rows 90cm apart in preparation for the planting of Maize on RHCI's farm.
Reasons Traditional Methods Produce Lower Yields
Traditional methods of groundnut cropping produce lower yields for a few reasons.
First Reason: Unaffordable Fertilizer
The first one is, that local farmers can not afford synthetic N-P-K fertilizer. A 50kg bag of N-P-K fertilizer in the Bo district costs about $60 USD. The average farmer in Sierra Leone earns approximately $1.25 per day. That is the equivalent of 6-7 weeks of salary for one bag of fertilizer.
When you have a family to support, it is already difficult to afford general expenses such as a kid’s school fees or home repairs. That makes it realistically impossible for most farmers to dish out money on fertilizer.
To give some background, a big contributing factor to why fertilizer is so scarce and expensive in Sierra Leone is that a lot of it is illegally imported over the borders from neighboring countries. Sierra Leone doesn’t have much for an economy, so they don’t produce any fertilizers. The price rises significantly because of the risk associated with bringing it to Sierra Leone along with the additional shipping costs. There is also virtually no training on proper fertilizer applications, even at the university level, so taking the risk to buy a bag for $60 is a crazy concept.
Calvin and Edmond teaching FBO women how to create straight rows and work together as a team.
Second Reason: Improper Spacing Between Seeds
The second reason the local groundnut cropping methods produce worse is because of the planting method they use by the name of the "scatter method". This method consists of someone holding a handful of groundnut seeds and casting out 10-20 seeds at a time to the farmland in front of them.
Two intrinsic downsides exist within this method. The seeds are often thrown too close to each other, so when they germinate, the seedlings spend their entire lives competing for nutrients in the soil. Additionally, because the seeds are randomly placed, there is no room for walking about and weeding throughout the season. This results in weeds outgrowing the groundnut crops and therefore stunting their growth and creating more competition.
Needless to say, by the end of the growing season, the RHCI was overwhelmed with groundnuts and almost didn’t have enough space to dry and store all of them (this is a good problem to have!).
Board of directors and FBO women planting maize seeds.
RHCI Farm in 2022: Second Planting Season
In 2022, the RHCI wanted to continue with the same planting methods given the success they saw last year but found it difficult without Calvin volunteering for them anymore. The RHCI partnered with Growing the Grassroots for this growing season in order to gain assistance from our field manager, Edmond Jumu.
Since we have only recently (as of May 2022) purchased our two acres of land for agricultural development, it is still just bushland and not ready for cultivation. That being said, Edmond didn’t have any other work, so he has been able to dedicate over 40 hours per week to the RHCI farm. He has been an enormous asset to both our teams.
On top of it all, he’s managed to create relationships with over 30 women in the community and has helped to form them into a farm-based organization that frequently visits the farm for technical training and education. Edmond is developmentally minded and always thinks quickly on his feet.
Calvin demonstrating, for the FBO women, how to plant and space maize seeds.
GTGR Board Members Visit the RHCI’s Farm
By the time the Growing the Grassroots board members visited the Bo District of Sierra Leone in May of 2022 for our first official organization trip, Edmond had made all the arrangements for the women to come and visit us for one large planting day. Calvin visited his old farm again, and this time brought four other board members including Eddie Berthold, Kathryn Wold, Paige Sullivan, and Jesse Pyrah.
Teaching a Farm-Based-Organization How to Grow Maize and Groundnuts
Calvin and Edmond were able to take the lead on the education side and walked the women through the planting process- including what to do, what not to do, WHY we do some things, and WHY we don’t do other things. Explaining the meaning behind our actions and teachings is just as important as the actual teaching.
The rest of the board members flawlessly organized the women into groups of four to facilitate efficiency and maximize the use of all tools and skill levels. They worked right alongside the women to let them know we are really there to serve them and work hard with them. The locals respect that type of gesture more than anything else you can do as an American.
The women were incredibly efficient workers, and they planted maize by hand for over half an acre with just small hand tools and sticks. They accomplished that feat in about three hours under the blistering sun.
What We Taught Them
Just to be clear, it’s not that these women didn’t know how to grow maize at all, we just wanted to give them training on a maize planting method that is scientifically proven to optimize land space and maximize yields.
There are other environmental factors we teach them, such as defense against rodents and birds, the importance of weeding and applying natural fertilizers (such as chicken dung, which is inexpensive and locally sourced), and working together.
It is really challenging to plant a farm in Sierra Leone by hand, let alone to do it by yourself. Many people opt to do this however because the more people you add to your farm, the more you need to split the crops and profits up. Showing these women how working together can lead to specialization, efficiency, speed on the farm, collaborating manpower, and even ideas can greatly impact the overall health of the crops and a farm’s chances for success.
Edmond teaching the FBO women how to apply fertilizer to the freshly planted maize seeds.
Edmond Continues Teaching the Women After Planting
After the Growing the Grassroots board members left Sierra Leone, Edmond was back in charge of the farm and of the schedule for inviting our FBO of women to the farm for supplemental training.
Edmond then invited them back two weeks after planting to apply the first side-dressing of N-P-K fertilizer and then invited them for weeding halfway through the season. Both of these steps happened in July 2022. The women learned the benefits of weeding and how it can greatly increase their yields if they remove the weeds and competition from the soil.
Then, in late August, they were invited back for harvesting, drying, and storage. In rural Africa, an estimated 30-40% of all crops are lost due to insufficient storage facilities. When our land is developed and we begin teaching classes on our own land, that is one thing we want to hit home- training and support for local farmers to get the facilities and tools they need to properly manage the storage of their crops.
Here is what the women did with the maize:
The women and Edmond harvested 68 dozen cobs of maize in total.
The RHCI sold 53 dozen cobs of maize and designated that money towards their agriculture program.
The RHCI saved 5 dozen cobs of maize for seed multiplication, aka, planting these kernels in the future.
The women split 10 dozen cobs of maize between themselves to be used as a food source and for seed multiplication.
Here is what the women did with the groundnuts:
The women and Edmond harvested 309 kg of groundnuts in total.
13 kg of groundnuts each were given to three different FBOs for a total of 39 kg.
13 kg of groundnuts were given to GTGR for seed multiplication.
The remaining 257 kg of groundnuts were given to the RHCI to be used for the pregnant women in the birth-waiting home as a vital protein source.
Conclusion
Overall, the women learned a comprehensive strategy for planting groundnuts and maize. They also learned how to work effectively as a team and hold each other accountable.
Not only did they learn how to farm using the methods we taught them, but they learned why these methods are effective. They understand the reasoning behind every decision we make in terms of agriculture. This is crucial because instead of having a surface-level understanding that wouldn’t take them far in their future, they have a deep understanding that can spread to people in their lives.
The FBO women told our in-country staff at GTGR that they want to continue working with us and no one else. They trust us and can tell that we don’t break our promises. This is why we are continuing work with them and you can read about that here (link to 2nd season storymap)!
