Overview

Text Box: Africa is a continent rich in natural resources, with beautiful people, vast landscapes, biodiversity, minerals & so much more & yet it is the most poverty stricken. Agriculture in Africa is done to very poor standards with severe crop failure & the need for massive tonnages of grain to be imported to African shores every year. Crop failures can be largely attributed to drought & not adhering to the simplest of cropping practices. We believe that by transferring skills to farmers, they are quickly able to turn their farms into viable ventures, from which their families can be fed & profits can be made. Agriculture is an economic sector which has the ability to allow the poor to reach for & attain their God given potential, & this in turn allows the subsidiary sectors to be built upon this foundation. We are targeting especially poor peasant farmers which account for more than 85% of the population of the continent, who are living undernourished, degraded lives, where food aid is leading to further degradation in self worth & family values. The current maize yields of the continent are between 300-600kg/ha, depending on the climatic cycles, which barely provide for an adult male never mind a family (1,200kg). The continental requirements for importing 21 million tons of grain this year clearly indicate the “begging bowl” status of the continent, whilst also displaying how poorly the continent is doing at realizing her potential. As a result of these poor yields, farming has become non-profitable, farmers are frowned upon in communities & land is not cared for. The response of the next generation is to migrate to “profitable centres”, where urbanization is seemingly the only solution for survival. The continent has many negative environmental parameters including droughts, erodable soils, extreme temperatures, infrequent & intense rainfall. Poor peasant farmers are also setback due to inadequate or poor education, lifeskills, health care & access to finances amongst others. Considering these parameters it is encouraging to know that none of these are insurmountable. However there is also no such thing as a quick fix in agriculture – it will require concerted unified efforts from all role players over a sustained time period. Farming God’s Way is implementing a model of Agriculture through church networks into the continent. We firmly believe that the church is both an accountable & faithful vehicle to roll out this model, & have done successful implementations into South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya & Lesotho. The astounding statistic that current yields of Maize in Africa stagger around 300kg/ha, with an average planting rate of 30kg/ha makes for a 10 fold increase. Given some simple planting, fertilization & conservation farming techniques, these yields can dramatically increase to well above 3,000kg/ha. This is a 10 fold improvement on existing practices, and a 100 fold increase on seeding rates, with little increase in costs. I believe that Agriculture is the one sector, where we can bring about positive change for the poor, that is both sustainable & brings Godly multiplication. The potential still exists to attain yields over 10t/ha. In the late 1990’s the Zambian authorities were so taken with the model that they combined with the World bank to roll it out at large scale. The World bank being keenly interested, due to the commitment by the agricultural authorities as well as the significant reduction in financial risk achieved. This has been a proven field with documented excellent results. Farming God’s Way is a model unlike I have ever seen even through 4 years of my BSc (Hons) Agriculture & extensive employment & travels, as it meets farmers where they are at, whilst dealing astoundingly well with the negative parameters facing them. We call it Farming God’s Way as it is the way we believe the church should be gearing itself towards doing things in His way, with His timing, to His standards of excellence, without wastage & with joy. Farming God’s Way incorporates the principles of management & environmental stewardship into the training, whilst achieving outstanding profitability. Farming God’s Way has a proven track record of 28 years & was initially designed by Brian Oldreive of Zimbabwe, on the commercial farm Hinton Estate (3,500ha). The farm was ultimately the second largest commercial farm in Zimbabwe. The technology was thereafter made available to surrounding predominantly subsistence farmers, & many success stories abound where farmers have adhered to standards, & lives across the continent have been drastically improved with results of radically improved yields, provision, profitability & restoration of farmers self worth. Farming God’s Way has been proven with a variety of crops including maize, soyabeans, sorghum, wheat, groundnuts, beans, cowpeas, vegetables & many more. By transferring Farming God’s Way skills to farmers, they are quickly able to turn their farms into viable ventures, from which their families can be fed, profits can be made & farms can become worthwhile businesses passed down as an inheritance from generation to generation.

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