http://soilandfood.org Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:40:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A group of sixteen Canadians, representing the Presbyterian Church in Canada, visited the SFHC project in August. Several healthy recipes were prepared by participating farmers in the presence of the visitors. Some of these were as follows:soya milk, pigeonpea relish, soya meat, fried bananas, soya coffee, pigeonpea and bananas. The ... http://soilandfood.org/recipes-demonstrated-to-canadian-visitors/ Lizzie Shumba and Rachel Bezner Kerr attended a policy workshop on soil fertility management and seed systems in Lilongwe, Malawi August 31-Sept. 1 2009. The workshop was organized by Bunda College of Agriculture and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to discuss how legumes can be better linked to ... http://soilandfood.org/sfhc-members-attend-policy-workshop/ A participatory workshop was held in May 2009 with 60 farmer representatives as well as staff and representatives from the Ekwendeni Hospital AIDS Program. The workshop involved assessing challenges and achievements of the project over the last 3 years, and thinking about strategies for the next few years. Rachel Bezner ... http://soilandfood.org/participatory-workshop-a-success/ Zacharia Nkhonya, Boyd Zimba, Rodgers Msachi and the members of the FRT have been pegging areas to collect yield data in 2009, and they have observed very healthy looking maize, and excellent legume fields. They think that the harvest this year should be very high, and look forward to collecting ... http://soilandfood.org/harvest-looking-healthy/ A new article in the magazine National Geographic highlights the SFHC project as an agroecological alternative to the dominant model of agriculture of fertilizers, hybrid seeds and pesticides being promoted for Africa. The author, Joel Bourne, visited the project in November 2008, and interviewed Rachel on the phone following ... http://soilandfood.org/national-geographic-article-highlights-sfhc/ Lizzie Shumba, the Project Coordinator, has returned to the Natural Resources College in September, after having a break from her studies. Lizzie has been on 'study leave' since February 2008. She spent her 'break' helping write reports and carry out seed collection and assessment. We wish her the best in ... http://soilandfood.org/lizzie-back-to-school/ Analysis by the SFHC team and collaborating researchers of anthropometric data collected over 8 years indicates that project involvement has a positive, significant effect on child weight-for-age, which is an indicator of child nutritional status. A report on these exciting findings will be submitted for publication in a scientific journal. ... http://soilandfood.org/project-involvement-improves-child-growth/ The Farmer Research Team and SFHC staff have been busy grading groundnut and soya bean seed this past month. Over 3000 kg of soya bean seed wascollected from participating farmers, and the quality of this legume seed is high. This seed will be redistributed to new participating farmers in the coming ... http://soilandfood.org/seed-quality-high/ The Farmer Research Team members have started collecting the seed from farmers. New participating SFHC farmers were given a seed 'loan' which they have to pay back at harvest. This year's groundnut harvest is not as good as last year, due to short rains, but soya bean ... http://soilandfood.org/lots-of-seed-finds-its-way-to-seed-bank/ A farmer pamphlet committee was formed in February 2008, including 6 farmers from the Farmer Research Team and our new SFHC Young Professional Intern Laura Swift. The pamphlets, designed, written and drawn by the committee, will tell stories of what the farmers feel that they have learned from the SFHC ... http://soilandfood.org/farmer-pamphlets-coming-soon/