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Farming God’s Way Malawi April 2005 |
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Malawi Farming God's Way Assessment report
Objectives 1. To assist the Vineyard Churches in Malawi through training in FGW 2. To assess the work the FGW training that has been going on in the Lower Shire under the Leadership of Lloyd Chizenga, in terms of percentage of adoption & standards. 3. To connect with partners & encourage their participation in breaking the yoke of oppression in Malawi
Dr Andrew Liebenberg joined me in this mission & was such a blessing in support, ministry, spiritual insight & prayer, & it was such a joy to have a companion for the duration of the mission.
Healing Hope missions lead by David Cuffaro & Henry Malili were an absolute God send. We arrived at Lilongwe with 6 of the 12 Vineyard team only to find Henry Phiri waiting at the airport for us. He had under David’s request decided to come to get as much of the heart of FGW as he could whilst at the conference & down in the Lower Shire, whilst serving us by driving us around Malawi. David had recently bought the Isuzu for this purpose & it was my first experience of driving in comfort all over Malawi. God sure was on our side in this regard as it is often by bicycle, hanging on the back of a cattle truck, or on the public buses with the chickens, goats, fresh produce etc. Anyhow I can only say thanks to David for his voluntary offer & Henry for driving us so safely & around the remote locations. Henry was also a great asset to the team in both the Vineyard conference & the assessments.
Henry & Andrew in the foreground – Dave Pederson in background on the Lake
Vineyard Conference
The Vineyard conference led by Dave Pederson from Port Elizabeth, was well attended with around 350 people & 45 churches represented from both Malawi & Mozambique. As always it was a great pleasure to work with Dave & his team & it is so exciting for me to be able to be a part of God’s united front in taking new territory. The FGW training went well & included an afternoon & evening of training & then another afternoon of putting a Well Watered Garden in. It was an exciting evening with a digital projector being used to display the FGW slide sequences on the outside wall of the church – with the vineyard logo as the backdrop for the slides. A generator, laptop & projector & we had a movie house with lots of “light to shine in the darkness”. There was as usual lots of interest & questions during the well watered garden & everyone enjoyed the demonstration, which ended after dark.
Chris from the Malawi Vineyard senior leadership gave testimony to the goodness of God as he implemented FGW from last years training. The whole team including the Malawi Vineyard leadership spent an afternoon at Cape Maclear diving & sharing a meal together. The value of building with quality time into leadership is such an important aspect which Dave has successfully entrenched into his mission efforts. An example of this was when all the Malawian leaders were coaxed into the water & given swimming lessons with much excitement & trepidation.
Certainly the highlight of the conference was when the Vineyard leadership baptised over 50 people in the lake, with shouts of celebration as the people confessed their sin & made a public declaration of their love for Jesus.
Lower Shire Assessments
After the Vineyard conference Henry, Andrew & I went down to the Lower Shire via Blantyre.
Mapelera Our first stop was with Dixon & God had certainly ordained the assessments in this order as I was literally blown away by his efforts. Everything had been done to the highest standards with enthusiasm & excellence. Dixon is not a farmer but because of the training he had received he was able to implement FGW & at least get a crop, albeit a poor one, where everyone else had had a total crop failure, due to this being the worst drought year since 1947. Dixon had just gotten married & we spent a night with him – Henry in a nice guest room & Andrew in our tent outside. What a joy it was to find a real disciple of Jesus who is fully persuaded. He had trained many people on his farm & even been training his congregation on FGW both in the church & in the field. Dixon was awarded the FGW farmer of the year award of R1,000, which he has said he will use for the winter plant in the lower lying banks of the Shire.
Dixon’s Yield summary
Tsapa The WWG at Tsapa was extremely well managed by Matheo John & his wife Margaret. The fence was well erected & the garden was weed free & although God’s blanket had been consumed by the termites the soil was already looking & feeling considerably better. He had also tried FGW on a small portion of his farm, which he used as a trial plot. This was great for my work as it allowed for a perfect test of FGW against the traditional style of agriculture. From the FGW land he harvested 5 bags & from a land area greater than 5 times the size he yielded only 6 bags. This is a yield comparison of 4.76 t/ha : 0.94 t/ha a 508% yield increase. Mattheo John gets a FGW farmer 3rd prize for standards & the excellent yield he achieved.
Pastor Banda had already prepared his lands in advance of the April rains. He had done his field to an incredible standard with perfect hole spacing etc, however he had dug his holes too deep. This form of digging is a traditional style of accessing the moisture during the drier winter periods, however I discourage the practise for many reasons one of which is the labour require to achieve the depth in the first place. His summer plant had been a failure as with everyone else in the area, however from the portion that he had tried FGW he was able to get a 3.21 t/ha as compared with traditional 0 t/ha i.e. another infinite yield increase.
Fatima Fatima was a great disappointment with the WWG fence again not being erected t standard. They showed me a picture of the WWG with really good size stalks, but I could see that already the goats had been in amongst the crop & they ultimately won the battle & consumed the whole crop. Some stern conversations followed & I won’t put another WWG in at Fatima without a fence already up. Fatima are especially without excuse as I put the WWG right at the well so that it could be watered throughout & be a real prize testimony to the community.
Andrew was a great blessing here as he washed the feet of the chief & dressed an ulcerous wound on his ankle. The chief was very appreciative & I know that that was a significant expression of servanthood which we pray will have a lasting influence on His Kingdom being established there.
The visits to the farm of Texon actually lifted my hopes for the work we had been doing in Fatima as we found an average adoption of the FGW principles, with good results. He got 1.1 t/ha & did a lot better than his neighbours even without fertilisation or God’s blanket.
Ngabu Ngabu had also failed dismally in the erection of a fence for the WWG & also because of the unavailability of water they weren’t able to get a crop off the WWG. However Pastor Lazo had practised FGW in his cotton fields with great success. He achieved a yield of 15 bails of cotton where on the same area his neigbours got only 6 bags, which equates to a yield increase of 250%.
Tomali Tomali has only ever had one days training & so my expectations were not high. However I was pleasantly surprised to find the flame had jumped to the lands – hallelujah!!! The WWG gets the 1st Prize for “Best WWG” of R250. The fence was totally impenetrable & termite proof by using palm branches which are not liked at all by the termites – well done Tomali.
Pastor George at the Tomali WWG
Pastor George had also taken FGW back to his farm & tried it on 3 portions of 14. He got 5 bags from the 3 portions & only 2 bags from the remaining 11 traditional portions. This equates to a 917% yield increase & a FGW yield of 1.6 t/ha. He had also already burnt his lands prior to our coming & so he & his wife carried in God’s blanket from the forests & he also put down 200kg of kraal manure. He had really gotten FGW in his heart & had already spoken of FGW in his church & called the local extension officer who was telling everyone to follow Pastor George’s example. Pastor George receives the prize for FGW farmer 2nd prize.
Pastor George’s mom is 70 years old & she too had given FGW a go. She had really taken the sowing & reaping principle to heart & had put it into practise. She is very poor like all of the community of Tomali are & so couldn’t afford fertiliser, she also doesn’t have any animals, and so she went & dug the soil from the anthills & placed that in the bottom of the anthills. She did very well from her small garden & was very proud of her achievements. “Go to the ant you sluggard & become wise” – Proverbs, has taken on a whole new meaning in a FGW context. She was only able to sow little but she nevertheless sowed & God was faithful to her according to His promise & she received the increase. Compared to her neighbouring farmers, who sowed nothing, they got absolutely nothing. I stand amazed at how much God cares for the sparrows.
Assessment summary Yields increase from 508% to infinity based on the soils type & topography. Although the percentage of the population adopting FGW is low, the fire has jump the great divide from the WWG to the farms & that must surely be the greatest hurdle. Hereafter, considering the living testimony on the farms & the amount of training going on in the communities by their own people, in my opinion it is only a matter of time before the Lord’s breath will cause those fires to run wild & all consuming – please pray sincerely for this to happen. The percentage adoption by those that are trying FGW is very good, with good spacing, hole depth, weed control & standards employed.
Some of the limiting factors which need to be more urgently adopted include: increasing the % cover of God’s blanket, access to high quality open pollinated variety seed & inputs in either manure or fertiliser.
Consider that if the farmers had adopted FGW over their entire area, they would’ve had enough to feed their families & to sell & make a profit in this the worst drought year since 1947. But for now the Malawians as with most other African nations will again go hungry & the aid organizations will roll in the subsidized produce for another season.
Blantyre Henry then took Andrew & I back to bvumbwe where we stayed in the Healing Hope Mission guest house, which was a great blessing after a week in the tent. It is a really nice venue & approximately 25km out of Blantyre on the Mulanje Rd. Many thanks to David Cuffaro for his offer & hospitality in allowing us to use the venue & vehicle. We had a good time of fellowship with Henry’s family & we were made to feel very at home.
Henry is very eager to get training for the communities around Bvumbwe & it seems that the October roll out may incorporate a couple of days assisting Healing Hope & the poor in that district.
There is so much more I could say of the walk & ministry in the Spirit on this mission, however at 6 pages already I must restrain my enthusiasm.
If there are any questions or if you would like to see the raw data please don’t hesitate to ask.
Yours sincerely in His service, Grant Dryden
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