Mama Jane Wanjiko’s neighbors are raising their eyebrows. Some are even wondering if it is the work of witchcraft. Who in the middle of a severe dry spell can have such a lush, fruitful garden as Mama Jane’s? Why, she has almost tripled the yield of a usual harvest!
Mama Jane is not worried. This is how she too first thought when she saw the farm of a World Renew Cultural Agriculture partner farmer. She got curious when the farmer told her she could yield double from her own little plot. Mama Jane attended all the trainings and starting using the practice too, spacing her crops, minimally tilling, and mulching just as she was shown. Her garden is now the greenest spot among the surrounding dry cornfields.
Mama Jane sees that even her skeptical or fearful neighbors can’t stop admiring her garden and is confident that they too will soon give Conservation Agriculture a try. That’s her new mission — she wants all the farmers in her community to embrace what she calls “the sweetness of CA!”
Conservation Agricultural practices are a total departure from traditional farming methods in in many of the communities served by World Renew and their partners. Although the practices are first met with skepticism or suspicion, champions of the method like Mama Jane are zealous and successful proponents and share it enthusiastically with the farmers in their community. For World Renew workers and their partners, seeing the fruit born of this and other projects gives us joy and encouragement to keep doing what Christ has called us to do.
Blessings,
Carol Musoke
Constituency Bridger
World Renew Uganda