Succesful 2022
Last report mentioned the succesful harvest of rice from the uplands.
The swamp rice was at 'tillering state' at that moment.
It became a bumper harvest! See the pictures below.
Loans were recovered to be used for the next season.
Attached also the financial report for 2022 + an overview of all donations for 2022.
Promising 2023
The aim for 2023 is to expand from 22 acres (44 farmers) to 32 acres (64 farmers).
This year we add mechanic cultivation to the budgetplan to make it possible to plow the fertile boli-lands.
Our agronome Momodu Sheku Kamara will also lead this project.
Your help
Without your help we cannot fund these promising plans!
As you can see in the report there is still a financial shortage for 2022.
Let your donation be used a a microcredit for year after year! :D
Do you have other options to help? We would love to receive your email on:
gert.e.prosman@gmail.com
or kaprituray@yahoo.com
Introduction
The global price increases of food, materials and energy are affecting many families in Sierra Leone. Own food production seems more important than ever! Flooding and political unrest also caused instability in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown. Fortunately, this had no effect on the situation in the countryside.
Uplands | Mixed cropped farming
The abundant rainfall has ensured a nice growth of the crops. The harvest of the earliest rice has already begun! The other crops such as sorghum and cassava have yet to mature. The downside of the heavy rain, however, is that it is worth drying the rice well so that mold is prevented. Fortunately, earlier in the season, farmers were taught about harvesting and conservation methods.
Swamps | Rice production
Fortunately, we received enough donations to start the new project: rice production in the swamps. At the end of the rainy season, the excess water collects in the low parts of the area and takes valuable nutrients with it. 20 farming families will have the opportunity to grow rice here. After germination and transplantation, the fields already look nice and green. The plants also show 'tillering'. That is the creation of extra shoots in which a rice-producing ear will later grow.
Despite this start, we still have insufficient budget to pay for the cultivation supervision by our agronomist Momodu Sheku Kamara. Will you also contribute to this project?
NEXT STEPS?: Please help us to make the next step forward!
We are still a small team, committed to Seeds for Growth to improve livelihoods in rural Sierra Leone.
Therefore we invite YOU to volunteer for the team.
And…WHY NOT join together? Please bring your friend or network partner(s) along!
Only together we can improve the livelihoods of farmers in rural Sierra Leone?
We ‘d love to have an online chat with you about the options.
Just drop an email to: gert.e.prosman@gmail.com
or kaprituray@yahoo.com
COVID-19 update Sierra Leone
Worldwide a new rise in COVID-19 cases is occurring. After a peek in last December and january in Sierra Leone the numbers of registered cases have been very low: although the number of registered cases is relatively low with currently 7693 cases and 125 deaths registered, it still influences daily life. And a full vaccination has reached the level of 21% of the 7.5 million inhabitants by June 5th, which is only a third of 61,4% fully vaccination level a worldwide.
Update from the fields mid June 2022
During the recent months Farmers have completed manual clearing and stumping on the twelve acres of farms. There was a delay in sowing seeds due to the late coming of rains in this region. In the past two weeks sowing/plating of rice seeds is ongoing by all our farmers in the twelve acres. An example of seeds vialbility test conducted in farmers site can be seen in attached photos.
In the first week of June three days training sessions were held with farmers on the topics:
The training was highly appreciated by farmers as new ideas were learnt and are being implemented in on going project activities.
Challenges during the month of June.
1) The Global fuel crisis have significantly affected the Sierra Leone economy. The two fuel increases in the past four months have plunged out economy to a near 100% increase in the cost of all commodities and services. The consequence for us is, that, the already provided project budget will not be enough to cover the higher costs of traveling and other costs for the coming months.
This means that we will need to provide an extension to the project budget.
2) Some of our previous Project beneficiaries have lost all their livelihoods when we stopped supporting them last year!
There is heavy pressure on our program manager by ten former SFG beneficiaries vulnerable church members whom we could not support in this mixed cropping farming project. Presently they are now requesting that we consider them for a Swamp Rice Production Project when the second cropping season for 2022 commences in September this year.
Unfortunately we currently do not have sufficient funds to meet this cry for help.
Summer campaign
In view of the project situation and the request for an extra cropping project, we are now starting the summer funding campaign,
to reach a target of EUR / USD 2500,=
Can we count on your contribution?
News from the Board
We are happy to introduce to you the new chair of the board: mr. Gert E. Prosman. Gert will take over the role of Ben Bolland as of July 1st.
Retrospect: Ben Bolland
As founder of SFG, Ben started this project in 2016, together with Kapri Turay. The first years of the initial Maize cropping project were very successful, going from 0 to 150 farmer-families in three years. Drought, pests and COVID-19 necessitated a change to a mixed cropping farming model. We honor Ben for adopting the initial request for help and we are very grateful for the extension of the foundation through all the difficulties in the past years.
Introduction of Gert Prosman
I live in Tilburg, a city in the south of The Netherlands, together with my wife and our two young daughters; Sara (3) and Roos (1). My profession is ruminant health care. I work as veterinary surgeon in Oisterwijks surroundings. Prevention of (metabolic) diseases and composing healthy rations are my main areas of focus.
In the SFG-projects I will look for combined strategies:
1) Low-risk cropping models as year-round food security for the farmers and their families.
2) Searching for interesting crops for trading to generate new money flows.
Of course, I also will pay attention to investigate the added value of introducing more domestic farm animals/ruminants in this ecosystem.
With the help of God, I hope to contribute to a sustainable improvement of the prosperity and happiness of Rochen Malal people.
NEXT STEPS?: Please help us to make the next step forward!
We are still a small team, committed to Seeds for Growth to improve livelihoods in rural Sierra Leone.
Therefore we invite YOU to volunteer for the team.
And…WHY NOT join together? Please bring your friend or network partner(s) along!
Only together we can improve the livelihoods of farmers in rural Sierra Leone?
We ‘d love to have an online chat with you about the options.
Just drop an email to: gert.e.prosman@gmail.com
or kaprituray@yahoo.com
Below a Photo of the new board member and a sample germination and seeds viability test sites on farmers fields.
COVID-19 update
Worldwide everyone struggles with the COVID-19 visue. Also in Sierra Leone: although the number of registered cases is relatively low with currently 7674 cases and 125 deaths registered, it still influences daily life.
And a full vaccination has only reached a level of 14% of the 7.5 million inhabitants.
Update from the Field.
In early March this year an extended program of four acres costing a little over six million Leones was proposed by the local Program manager, mr. Momodu Sheku Kamara., following the successful loans recovery from the participating farmers in the previous year 2021.
The proposal was approved by the Board and after providing the additional funds, presently we have 12 acres mixed cropping farming supporting twenty-four farmers.
Farming activities are on going as per schedule. It is a very labor intensive operation as can be seen on the photos of the farm land below, requiring more labour and farmers investment in cash and food in kind. Farmers formed communal labor groups to support these heavy operations manually.
The required inputs of fertilizer and rice seeds were procured timely for the additional farmers, just in time before prices soared due to the recent political instability world wide.
All the 12 acres farms have been simultaneously worked on by the labor groups which comprises of all 24 member farm families who own the 12 acres farm area. The photo on Top of this report gives you an impression of the farmer families, involved.
NEXT STEPS?: Please help us to make the next step forward!
We are still a small team, committed to Seeds for Growth to improve livelihoods in rural Sierra Leone. And soon, Ben will be leaving our team.
Therefore we invite YOU to volunteer for the team.
And…WHY NOT join together? Please bring your friend or network partner(s) along!
Only together we can improve the livelihoods of farmers in rural Sierra Leone?
We ‘d love to have an online chat with you about the options.
Just drop an email to: ben.bolland@bevon.nl or kaprituray@yahoo.com
Thank you for opening this november 2021 newsletter!
A brief COVID-19 update
Worldwide we still struggle with the COVID-19 visue. Although the number of registered cases in Sierra Leone is relatively low with currently 6401 cases and 121 deaths reported, it still dominates daily life. And the vaccination campaign reached only about 302,686 fully vaccinated people, which is 3,87% of the 7.5 million inhabitants.
Seeds for Growth in the malal chiefdom
After our summer 2021 news letter, our program manager, mr M.S. Kamara continued supports a year covering cropping season project for 14 farmer families, based on intercropping of Rice combined with a few other crops like sorghum, benni, cassave and groundnuts.
Since mid september we received positive updates on the rice harvest, and this gives us hope that the final outcome of this full year support for this way of mixed cropping is becoming a success for the farmers. Mid december 2021 we expect to fulfil a final evaluation, and make new plans for the next year.
Of course the COVID-situation has affected the farming situation in a negative way, still the team is expecting reasonable harvest outcomes, thanks to the combined cropping strategy.
MAFFS/FAO partnership, a new opportunity.
Since summer 2021, the Government is Sierra Leone, in partnership with FAO (Food and Agriculture organizarion of UN), is preparing for a country wide network to work with local NGO’s. The aim is to develop a network which can be activated as a Quick response team whenever a disaster has occured and quick support is needed for local farmer families.
Our local project team, named “Seeds for Growth Farmers Association” has applied for an eligible role. During the week of 8 september 2021 a group of 5 MAFFS/FAO experts has visited the local team and has inspected the project and team competencies. The provisional outcome of the visit was a placing on the short-list, but after a few weeks the ruling party seems to have interfered in the short listings. Since that moment no further communication from MAFFS/FAO has been received.
NEXT STEPS?: Please help us to make the next step forward!
We are still a small team, committed to Seeds for Growth to improve livelihoods in rural Sierra Leone. But this small team has limited possibilities to create a bigger IMPACT.
Therefore we invite YOU to volunteer for the team.
And…WHY NOT join together? Please bring your friend or network partner(s) along!
Only together we can improve the livelihoods of farmers in rural Sierra Leone?
We ‘d love to have an online chat with you about the options.
Just drop me an email: ben.bolland@bevon.nl
Final request: Please donate and support our cause!
Let’s make 2022 a year of hope and recovery for a greater group of rarmers.
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