Farming my way into the fastlane

[Awakened2022]

firstly, good luck to you and your close ones.

Thank you. At fifteen, you have the world going for you. Try as many legal things as possible, and don't forget to have fun.

I have a seventeen-year-old son who doesn't own a phone, and won't for the next two years because they are prohibited in most Ugandan secondary schools. Even if they were, I doubt we have reached the level of affluence where we lavish smartphones on young boys.

It is good you appreciate the rich heritage you have and the opportunities before you. Keep counting your blessings.

I appreciate the time you took to read through my progress.

May good things keep happening to you, too.

Till next time,
Aura.

 

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[Awakened2022]

Just read your thread from the start. You look like the live version of the Stardew Valley game that I love to play.

I will look that game up.

Thanks for going through my progress thread. It means a lot to me.

To answer your questions:
1. In my part of Uganda, the cassava leaves are either wasted or fed to rabbits. Some feed them to cattle but in moderation. I hear that in Northern Uganda, they make a delicious sauce out of them. Maybe @Isaac Odongo can chime in and tell us what they do with the cassava leaves.

2. Cassava is a resilient crop that is not adversely affected by drought. For us, the dry period starts in May and lasts up to mid-August. To my surprise, the cassava I planted in May was able to sprout, and when it finally rained in September, the growth rate was awe-inspiring.

You might want to experiment with a few stems first and see how things go.

You are right. Cassava is a low-maintenance crop, and for us here, fresh tubers go well with milk at breakfast when steamed. Many are now using it to mingle cassava bread (in the place of millet bread) and it makes a wholesome meal. In my home, not a week goes by without us making pancakes made of yellow bananas and cassava flour. There surely are many uses to which cassava flour can be put!

3. Kind of you to inquire about the girl. It is the dad who had passed on. In my story, she had also lost a sister who was herself disabled. Last I heard, the community had started constructing a small brick house for them.

You have challenged me to take some bars of soap for them this weekend when I go to the village. Thank you for reminding me to help others.

I hope you plant the cassava as soon as possible so that you can:
Act
Assess and
Adjust.

Till next time,
Aura.

 

[Awakened2022]

Just read your thread from the start.

@Laras00, those onions in your avatar are eye-catching and mouth-watering.

 

[Awakened2022]

END-OF-YEAR WRAP-UP

2023 has taught me a lot and has seen a lot of metamorphosis take place in my life.
1. I now understand why I have been an unhappy employee. While I have been carrying out my duties diligently, I could never have the same passion for the institution I work for that I see my colleagues exuding. I only have such passion for my projects, however small. I guess I was meant to be self-employed, but didn't know it.
2. I have learned the power of leverage, a word I first encountered in M.J.'s books. I have now learned to leverage our vast family land, my trait of being meticulous, and the cheap labor available in my village.
Another word that has changed the way I do business is value skew. My small store has gained a reputation for having the whitest and cleanest cassava flour, cassava chips, grit-free millet and millet flour, and the best-sorted beans and peanuts. I go on cloud nine whenever some new customer tells me he has been referred to my store by another customer.

3. I now have a business where I can control the quality of the products. In addition, it is not entirely tied to my time like the job. For instance, I am now in the village overseeing the harvesting of beans while my son runs the store. Plus, some people call me to make orders that my son delivers. I guess I could say I have some toes in the fast lane. Mind you, my capital is very small, but I have learned that with consistency and dedication, I can make something of this venture.

4. I have managed to resign from my part-time teaching job where I was earning $83 per month. I trust this will give me time to dedicate to cassava growing and processing. Without a venture that promises exponential growth in my income, I would still be stuck in teaching and complaining mode.

WHERE MY CASSAVA IS AT NOW

The first garden of 900 plants is eight months old. If I were desperate for money, I would start harvesting it. I will however leave it to make one year as the taste and texture of the flour improves with maturity.

The cassava I planted in August and September is undergoing its second weeding, and the plants look healthy.

At the store, the price has remained the same, but few people have clean cassava chips as we are experiencing El Nino. I am worried about running out of stock soon as demand skyrockets during the festive season.

This year, I have spent around $2000 on the purchase of cassava chips. I hope to save that and more next year as I will be selling mine.

GOALS FOR 2024.

1. To plant around 2500 cassava cultivars in the area currently under millet come February.
2. To acquire a solar drier.
3. To brand packing materials for cassava flour.
4. To do more wholesaling than retailing.
5. To promote the business to catering groups so that their clients can be referred to our store.
6. To buy at least two cows so that I can stop buying milk when we go to the village during holidays.

IN OTHER NEWS

1. I have spent two weeks in the village, and the kids have been super helpful in doing farm work. I guess we have got a taste of financial freedom without the finances. We eat only organic bananas, cassava, beans, eggs, wild strawberries, mangoes, sugar canes, etc and we buy milk straight from our neighbor's farm.
The kids are beseeching their dad to let them spend the holidays in the village!

I have partnered with my mother-in-law to put an acre of her land under cassava. I have already contracted casual workers to prepare the field and I will do the planting after Christmas break.

On a lighter note, I now calculate expenses in terms of cassava. Two liters of milk that I buy daily are equivalent to one kilo of cassava flour, a casual worker costs me 5000 shillings a day, which is two kilos of cassava flour, and internet data is ten kilos of cassava flour a month.

I am on holiday till 5th February next year. I am using this time to write a book that I wish my mother had written for me. My daughter has read some chapters and is constantly asking for more. I hope I will finish it and add author to my status. Any advice from authors especially of memoirs is highly welcome.

If any of you need a beta reader or proofreader, feel free to get in touch.

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
Till next time,

Aura.

 

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[Awakened2022]

Happy New Year, everyone.

I wish I could say December was a good month! It wasn't.This is why.

Being stuck in the slowlane is truly a death sentence. When we were warming up for the festive season, our beloved government put a damper on our moods by declaring it had fallen short of resources to pay December salaries for secondary School teachers in our district.
Remember, my husband and I are both secondary School teachers in this district.To make matters worse, the school we supply bananas also pushed payments to next term.Now I know what it means to be between a rock and a hard place.

All the while, four workers had to be paid their wages, and seven kids have to be fed and clothed.This is where I learnt the lesson of my life: If you have no control over when you get paid, you are a slave.

We were able to clear wages using proceeds from the sale of bananas to the villagers, food comes from the farm, and we are eating the grocery store down.

Because of this stress, work on my book has stalled.

On the cassava front, I did run out of supplies as predicted and I am currently outsourcing, but it can't be as clean as mine.

I will give another update in Feb when I plant more. I expect to begin harvesting the first garden in May, when it makes one year.
Till then,
Aura.

 

[Mikkel]

@Awakened2022 your posts are very inspiring, I can't believe I am just seeing this thread now.

A few thoughts and questions:
1. How much does a solar dryer cost?
2. Depending on the cost of a solar dryer, could you make a makeshift solar dryer from the materials that you have available? The cost to import a solar dryer(unless built in Uganda) may be prohibitively expensive. If you were able to make a DIY solar dryer, then presumably you can scale your production quicker and cheaper as well as build multiple solar dryers when needed.

3. I was reading that Cassava flour is a great gluten-free alternative. The gluten-free market has a very high price markup. I wonder if there is a market for your Cassava flour to be used and sold as a Gluten-Free product. For instance, Cassava pasta. I pay about $12 for a kg of organic gluten-free pasta. I don't know much about producing food and the costs that go into that, but if you are making a profit selling Cassava for 1kg in Uganda, I think there is profit to be made in exporting to 1st world countries where Gluten-Free is a very large market.

4. In regards to exporting, one difficulty is that Uganda is a landlocked country. This means that exporting outside of Africa will be more expensive than for coastal countries, due to typically having to pay some sort of tax or fee as you move goods across the border. Mombasa, Kenya has one of the largest seaports in Eastern Africa. If you took the time to learn how to export your products, then you can better manage the fluctuations in the local market as well as bring in more money into the local economy.

5. The largest importers of Cassava flour(according to Tridge) is the USA at $49.3M, Canada $12M, and China 6.3M.
The largest importers of Casava starch(according to TrendEconomy) is China at $2.2B, Indonesia $156M, and USA $130M
Here is an interesting link in regards to the growing market for Cassava(root, starch, and flour) in Europe.

6. If you are to take this route, my suggestion would probably be to link up with a local exporter from either Uganda or Kenya to better understand what the current demands are and to best determine if this would be a profitable route for you.

7. To further push you towards exporting, if exporting is not well known in your local area, you can purchase large quantities of Cassava from local farmers with a reliable purchaser(exporters) which means you are effectively increasing your farmable land and you make a profit by being the middleman(women) rather than farming the land. The question will be whether or not you need to process the food(flour, chips, etc) or if exporters are only looking for raw Cassava.

Anyway, I look forward to future updates! Awesome thread!

 

[Spenny]

This is an underrated and inspired thread. I've read this in one sitting, and I have no idea how I've not found it already.

We would also need to upgrade our pickup truck (the best purchase ever made) to a bigger one. Can we afford it? Time will tell.

I know someone has suggested grants, but are there maybe investors? Farms are relatively predictable, produce an item essential for people and can be scaled to fulfil demand. It looks ripe for someone to throw money your way if you're willing for part ownership to be exchanged. It could be a game of 1+1 = 3

Even cassava flour has seen its price plummet. Are there lessons in predicting markets?

It's challenging to - you can maybe see it coming with reading the news. The best thing is to diversify what you grow so that you're not only covered by prices but weather too. Maybe for now, you focus entirely on Cassava as that seems to be a cash cow, but as you expand, you may want to keep your eyes peeled for value opportunities with other crops - especially if they aren't usually pure.

Later edit: it's a game of risk mitigation vs reward. It means not putting your eggs all in one basket, but still getting an outsized return.

The flour quality from the capital is not as good as mine, and now more people are finding their way to my store.

True productocracy. Keep working hard, expanding purification capabilities, and you have something here.

You mentioned somewhere that people are giving you their cassava for purification, so perhaps you could have a new revenue stream (more diversification too!). Take their cassava, purify it, put it under your brand, and become a critical exporter of cassava.

The value exchange you engage is that A) you get more cassava + leverage their time/land, and B) they get paid to expand themselves with equipment they otherwise wouldn't have access to. It can be a rather lucrative system & you can provide extra value here.

2. Depending on the cost of a solar dryer, could you make a makeshift solar dryer from the materials that you have available? The cost to import a solar dryer(unless built in Uganda) may be prohibitively expensive. If you could make a DIY solar dryer, then presumably, you can scale your production quicker and cheaper, as well as build multiple solar dryers when needed.

I'd look into this if it makes sense cost-wide - as long as you can produce quality cassava without impurities, you can bootstrap & have a bridge until you get the proper equipment.

 

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[Awakened2022]

How much does a solar dryer cost?

Thanks for reading through my progress thread. It means a lot. To answer your questions,
A friend has a solar drier for ginger with a capacity of two tons, and she told me it cost her around five million Ugandan shillings($1351). However, this includes all the materials used.

I estimate that it would cost me around $810 since I have timber and the poles needed.
Yes, local materials can be used. I have been doing research and it seems the big costs go into paying for expertise and the polythene.
Export, not only of cassava flour but of many other organic agricultural products is in my 5-year planasay. I had to start somewhere and cassava is what is in the pipeline. When the quantities make sense, I guess I will have to give it my all.
Thanks for that link. I will follow it up.

As of now, the best I can do is plant more cassava and encourage some women to do the same. I hope to get money in July(the peak of the coffee season) to construct the drier since the heavy rains start in August. In the meantime, I will rely on the sun as I have been doing.

I have enrolled for an innovator entrepreneurship course(free) and they promise to link us up with the necessary offices. I hope this will ease my introduction into company registration, branding, and getting a license.

I hope I have satisfied your curiosity to a point.

 

[Awakened2022]

This is an underrated and inspired thread. I've read this in one sitting, and I have no idea how I've not found it already.


I know someone has suggested grants, but are there maybe investors? Farms are relatively predictable, produce an item essential for people, and can be scaled to fulfill demand. It looks ripe for someone to throw money your way if you're willing for part ownership to be exchanged. It could be a game of 1+1 = 3

It's challenging to - you can maybe see it coming with reading the news. The best thing is to diversify what you grow so that you're not only covered by prices but weather too. Maybe for now, you focus entirely on Cassava as that seems to be a cash cow, but as you expand, you may want to keep your eyes peeled for value opportunities with other crops - especially if they aren't usually pure.

Later edit: it's a game of risk mitigation vs reward. It means not putting your eggs all in one basket, but still getting an outsized return.

True productocracy. Keep working hard, expanding purification capabilities, and you have something here.

You mentioned somewhere that people are giving you their cassava for purification, so perhaps you could have a new revenue stream (more diversification too!). Take their cassava, purify it, put it under your brand, and become a critical exporter of cassava.

The value exchange you engage is that A) you get more cassava + leverage their time/land, and B) they get paid to expand themselves with equipment they otherwise wouldn't have access to. It can be a rather lucrative system & you can provide extra value here.

I'd look into this if it makes sense cost-wide - as long as you can produce quality cassava without impurities, you can bootstrap & have a bridge until you get the proper equipment.

Thanks, @Spenny for taking the time to go through my thread. It is a form of validation for me. I Delayed replying because my phone has issues and right now, I have borrowed a laptop from my daughter.

This is an underrated and inspired thread. I've read this in one sitting, and I have no idea how I've not found it already.


I know someone has suggested grants, but are there maybe investors? Farms are relatively predictable, produce an item essential for people, and can be scaled to fulfill demand. It looks ripe for someone to throw money your way if you're willing for part ownership to be exchanged. It could be a game of 1+1 = 3

It's challenging to - you can maybe see it coming with reading the news. The best thing is to diversify what you grow so that you're not only covered by prices but weather too. Maybe for now, you focus entirely on Cassava as that seems to be a cash cow, but as you expand, you may want to keep your eyes peeled for value opportunities with other crops - especially if they aren't usually pure.

Later edit: it's a game of risk mitigation vs reward. It means not putting your eggs all in one basket, but still getting an outsized return.

True productocracy. Keep working hard, expanding purification capabilities, and you have something here.

You mentioned somewhere that people are giving you their cassava for purification, so perhaps you could have a new revenue stream (more diversification too!). Take their cassava, purify it, put it under your brand, and become a critical exporter of cassava.

The value exchange you engage is that A) you get more cassava + leverage their time/land, and B) they get paid to expand themselves with equipment they otherwise wouldn't have access to. It can be a rather lucrative system & you can provide extra value here.

I'd look into this if it makes sense cost-wide - as long as you can produce quality cassava without impurities, you can bootstrap & have a bridge until you get the proper equipment.

Thanks@Spenny for taking the time off your busy schedule to go through my thread. It means a lot and the suggestions you made make a lot of business sense.

The only clarification I wish to make is that I do not purify the cassava. Rather, I spread it out to dry with a lot of commitment and dedication which verges on an obsession. As a result, it comes out white, pure, and grit-free. Others simply peel it and spread it out with no care as to the cleanliness of the tarpaulin, how often they turn it over, or if animals walk over it.

About getting an investor, it is a nice idea, but my family dynamics would not permit it. Already, my hubby is an automatic partner with more say in the direction of the business than me by the simple fact that I am his wife, and I am farming part of their family land( as you must have learned from my previous posts).

Being African sucks, but being an African wife in a patriarchal society sucks even more. Nonetheless, I will keep learning and keep nudging hubby in the right direction. Not bad so far.

So, my best bet now is to increase the acreage of the cassava and work on constructing a drier. With capital from the first harvest, then I will look into constructing more in various cassava growing areas so that I can increase how much I buy and sell. I guess three years can be my target.

I hope you know by this time that someone was benevolent enough to gift me an INSIDERS subscription for three months. I plan to use the opportunity to learn as much as I can about the export business so that when my opportunity comes, I am well prepared to grab it.

I am a keen follower of your progress, and pray that your momentum keeps increasing.

If there are issues I haven't addressed, feel free to remind me.

Till next time,
Aura.

 

[Spenny]

The only clarification I wish to make is that I do not purify the cassava. Rather, I spread it out to dry with a lot of commitment and dedication which verges on an obsession. As a result, it comes out white, pure, and grit-free. Others simply peel it and spread it out with no care as to the cleanliness of the tarpaulin, how often they turn it over, or if animals walk over it.

Oh, apologies, I assumed it was some flour that was being created. I wonder if you could rig heaters between stacks of shelves, resulting in a lot of cassava being dried quickly & compactly. However, electricity is difficult to get a hold of in abducent quantities.

I could imagine something like this, with a slew of heaters above each tray, which may speed up the process. Of course, the trays should be larger.


Edit: I see alibaba has some for $6.5k (ouch). A crude rig may do for now...?

 

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[Awakened2022]

Oh, apologies, I assumed it was some flour that was being created. I wonder if you could rig heaters between stacks of shelves, resulting in a lot of cassava being dried quickly & compactly. However, electricity is difficult to get a hold of in abducent quantities.

I could imagine something like this, with a slew of heaters above each tray, which may speed up the process. Of course, the trays should be larger.


Edit: I see alibaba has some for $6.5k (ouch). A crude rig may do for now...?

View attachment 53461

@Spenny, we are yet to get connected to the national power grid. That is why a solar drier is a step ahead of direct sun drying. Even if we had power, research tells me a flash drier is very expensive.

You are not mistaken about the flour. We first dry the cassava as chips, and later mill them into flour. Milling is a form of value addition and I have owning a mill in mind when production reaches levels that make business sense.

Thanks for going to great lengths. The equipment looks good. A solar drier has trays like those, hence the cleanliness.

Till next time,
Aura.

 

[Awakened2022]

Happy Birthday to me. Three more years of the slow lane till I hit the required age of 45 for early retirement. To celebrate the big day, I was up at 6:30 with a forked hoe, with a casual labourer preparing a piece of land for me to plant cassava tomorrow( I guess I will plant around 300.)I last did some digging during Covid 19 Lockdown and my palms are screaming in protest.

My son has just called to say he has run out of dry cassava chips today. Thankfully, I have been in the village trying to chip and dry some. The weather however has had other ideas. It is raining cats and dogs,(when it should be shining like the devil is after it) and my chips may not turn out as white as I would wish.

I have been thinking deeply about my end game, and I have realised that I will soon run out of land for planting cassava. The market is there, true, and it will only get better given that right now, famine is ravaging most villages in our region, and he who can provide food will be king.

My best bet is to sell off my produce when it gets ready starting this May and concentrate on buying from others and providing a drying and processing centre.

Meanwhile, I am happy with where my gardens are at and will be planting more in February. I now have some customers who buy cassava flour from me regularly, albeit in small quantities. I expect more to come since I will be dealing in my own produce and can even give competitive prices.

Internet searches have revealed that there are companies that export cassava chips, flour, and fresh tubers. This has been a form of validation for our venture.When the time is ripe, I will encourage hubby to contact some so that we get our feet wet in the export business by learning from them.

I recently had people send me cassava chips claiming they were white and clean only to realize few people understand what clean cassava looks like! I have learnt my lesson. If I can't physically inspect it, I won't buy it!

The purpose of this update is mainly to express my gratitude to this forum for helping me birth an idea that makes me look to the future with optimism and purpose instead of grim resignation.

Will update in February when I do the bulk of the planting( luckily, I will get the cultivars from the first garden that I planted in May).

Till next time,

Aura.
P.S. Our beloved government is yet to pay us December and January salaries.Where would yours truly be without food security?

 

[Bounce Back]

Happy Birthday! I really like reading your updates / your outlook on things.

Quality inspection never ends! Even large companies with resources to invest in it struggle.

 

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[Awakened2022]

Happy Birthday! I really like reading your updates / your outlook on things.

Quality inspection never ends! Even large companies with resources to invest in it struggle.

Thank you. I was reading through @Walter Hay's AMA about export and import and realised that quality inspection is vital for a business that deals in physical products.

I am glad you enjoy my updates. Let us hope this thread will give some value to newbies, especially those from the third world.

 

[Bekit]

Happy birthday to you, Aura! Your updates always inspire me so much!!

I love the idea of you having a drying and processing center. That sounds like a wonderful way for you to focus on your skills and the unique way you bring value.

I'm curious - if famine is affecting the region, how is your stuff growing?

 

[Awakened2022]

Happy birthday to you, Aura! Your updates always inspire me so much!!

I love the idea of you having a drying and processing center. That sounds like a wonderful way for you to focus on your skills and the unique way you bring value.

I'm curious - if famine is affecting the region, how is your stuff growing?

Thanks for the birthday wishes. I appreciate your encouragement.

Famine here is not a new phenomenon. It has become a way of life, if I may put it that way. While most women are hardworking( those who work on my farm for instance), they don't have enough land to cultivate. Their small pieces are exhausted and the yields become miserable. Sometimes, I pay for their labour with bananas, cassava, and beans. Those who planted millet on my land have got a rich harvest, thank God.
Climate change has also not spared us as soil erosion is ravaging the already exhausted soils.

I am lucky to have married into a family with a big chunk of land. We have also bought around 10 acres which are under coffee and bananas. Therefore, since I cultivate virgin land, my cassava is growing at a terrific pace. I am looking to the future with optimism.

I hope you are also making progress in your ventures.

Aura

 

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[Andy Black]

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy birthday Aura!

famine is ravaging most villages in our region,

So sorry to hear that.

So much of the navel gazing and lamenting in the forum is about first world problems. I hope more peope read this and learn to appreciate what they already have.

 

[Andy Black]

END-OF-YEAR WRAP-UP

2023 has taught me a lot and has seen a lot of metamorphosis take place in my life.
1. I now understand why I have been an unhappy employee. While I have been carrying out my duties diligently, I could never have the same passion for the institution I work for that I see my colleagues exuding. I only have such passion for my projects, however small. I guess I was meant to be self-employed, but didn't know it.
2. I have learned the power of leverage, a word I first encountered in M.J.'s books. I have now learned to leverage our vast family land, my trait of being meticulous, and the cheap labor available in my village.
Another word that has changed the way I do business is value skew. My small store has gained a reputation for having the whitest and cleanest cassava flour, cassava chips, grit-free millet and millet flour, and the best-sorted beans and peanuts. I go on cloud nine whenever some new customer tells me he has been referred to my store by another customer.

3. I now have a business where I can control the quality of the products. In addition, it is not entirely tied to my time like the job. For instance, I am now in the village overseeing the harvesting of beans while my son runs the store. Plus, some people call me to make orders that my son delivers. I guess I could say I have some toes in the fast lane. Mind you, my capital is very small, but I have learned that with consistency and dedication, I can make something of this venture.

4. I have managed to resign from my part-time teaching job where I was earning $83 per month. I trust this will give me time to dedicate to cassava growing and processing. Without a venture that promises exponential growth in my income, I would still be stuck in teaching and complaining mode.

WHERE MY CASSAVA IS AT NOW

The first garden of 900 plants is eight months old. If I were desperate for money, I would start harvesting it. I will however leave it to make one year as the taste and texture of the flour improves with maturity.

The cassava I planted in August and September is undergoing its second weeding, and the plants look healthy.

At the store, the price has remained the same, but few people have clean cassava chips as we are experiencing El Nino. I am worried about running out of stock soon as demand skyrockets during the festive season.

This year, I have spent around $2000 on the purchase of cassava chips. I hope to save that and more next year as I will be selling mine.

GOALS FOR 2024.

1. To plant around 2500 cassava cultivars in the area currently under millet come February.
2. To acquire a solar drier.
3. To brand packing materials for cassava flour.
4. To do more wholesaling than retailing.
5. To promote the business to catering groups so that their clients can be referred to our store.
6. To buy at least two cows so that I can stop buying milk when we go to the village during holidays.

IN OTHER NEWS

1. I have spent two weeks in the village, and the kids have been super helpful in doing farm work. I guess we have got a taste of financial freedom without the finances. We eat only organic bananas, cassava, beans, eggs, wild strawberries, mangoes, sugar canes, etc and we buy milk straight from our neighbor's farm.
The kids are beseeching their dad to let them spend the holidays in the village!

I have partnered with my mother-in-law to put an acre of her land under cassava. I have already contracted casual workers to prepare the field and I will do the planting after Christmas break.

On a lighter note, I now calculate expenses in terms of cassava. Two liters of milk that I buy daily are equivalent to one kilo of cassava flour, a casual worker costs me 5000 shillings a day, which is two kilos of cassava flour, and internet data is ten kilos of cassava flour a month.

I am on holiday till 5th February next year. I am using this time to write a book that I wish my mother had written for me. My daughter has read some chapters and is constantly asking for more. I hope I will finish it and add author to my status. Any advice from authors especially of memoirs is highly welcome.

If any of you need a beta reader or proofreader, feel free to get in touch.

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
Till next time,

Aura.

@MJ DeMarco... Your books are literally helping people feed themselves and others. Amazing progress Aura and I love your writing and spirit. Marked GOLD.

 

[Andy Black]

I am wondering whether I shouldn't name this thread,"Farming My Way Into the Fastlane."What do you think?

Done.

 

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[Mikkel]

Happy Birthday, Aura!

Climate change has also not spared us as soil erosion is ravaging the already exhausted soils.

Has vermicomposting(worm composting) been tried in areas where the soil is lacking in nutrients?

It is hard to expect good crop yields when there is poor nutrients in the soil. It looks like there is a worm called African Nightcrawlers that would be ideal in your region. It is native to Western Africa, I am not sure if these worms are also located in Eastern Africa.

The issue of soil lacking nutrients sounds like a very real problem that needs a very real solution.

If you can come up with a solution and provide this as a service you might be able to both profit by increased crop yields, profit from selling the nutrient rich soil, and also reduce famine.

Just from what you have written, it sounds like if the soil was of better quality, there would be more food.


After writing the above thoughts, I decided to do a bit of research and stumbled across a great research article called Approaches to improve soil fertility in sub-Saharan Africa

I think it is worth the read. It won't tell you the step by steps, but the research suggests a few top priorities for your region(Great Lakes Region).

Top 5 issues in the Great Lakes Region.
1. Nitrogen Dificiency
2. Acidity
3. Low soil organic carbon content
4. Phosphorus Dificiency
5. Micronutrients Dificiency

The 4 emerging themes noted in the article were:

1. Strengthening inorganic fertilizer-based systems;
2. Access to and use of quality organic inputs;
3. Capacity building along the entire knowledge-transfer value chain
4. Strengthening farming systems research and development across biophysical and socio-economic factors.

I think for your purposes the first two would be the most critical as 3 and 4 are in regards to the widespread implementation of strategy.

They do indicate some suggestions which you can find in the Results and Discussion section though more information would be needed.

My general thought is this, if you were able to create a system that improved the soil compensation, that would be incredibly valuable. The soil doesn't need to be 100% effective. But any improvement that increases crop yield means more income and less famine. A win for everyone.

 

[Spenny]

Happy Birthday, Aura, congratulations on the GOLD and keep saving the world!

 

[Awakened2022]

Happy birthday Aura!

Thanks@Andy Black.

 

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[Awakened2022]

Marked GOLD.

Are tears in order? The best birthday gift ever.

 

[Awakened2022]

Done.

Thanks a ton. I hope this thread inspires others to look to Agriculture for solutions.

 

[Andy Black]

Are tears in order? The best birthday gift ever.

Ah Aura. It's not a gift. You're the one doing the work and making lives better in your little corner of the world.

 

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[Awakened2022]

Happy Birthday, Aura!


Has vermicomposting(worm composting) been tried in areas where the soil is lacking in nutrients?

It is hard to expect good crop yields when there is poor nutrients in the soil. It looks like there is a worm called African Nightcrawlers that would be ideal in your region. It is native to Western Africa, I am not sure if these worms are also located in Eastern Africa.

The issue of soil lacking nutrients sounds like a very real problem that needs a very real solution.

If you can come up with a solution and provide this as a service you might be able to both profit by increased crop yields, profit from selling the nutrient rich soil, and also reduce famine.

Just from what you have written, it sounds like if the soil was of better quality, there would be more food.


After writing the above thoughts, I decided to do a bit of research and stumbled across a great research article called Approaches to improve soil fertility in sub-Saharan Africa

I think it is worth the read. It won't tell you the step by steps, but the research suggests a few top priorities for your region(Great Lakes Region).

Top 5 issues in the Great Lakes Region.
1. Nitrogen Dificiency
2. Acidity
3. Low soil organic carbon content
4. Phosphorus Dificiency
5. Micronutrients Dificiency

The 4 emerging themes noted in the article were:

1. Strengthening inorganic fertilizer-based systems;
2. Access to and use of quality organic inputs;
3. Capacity building along the entire knowledge-transfer value chain
4. Strengthening farming systems research and development across biophysical and socio-economic factors.

I think for your purposes the first two would be the most critical as 3 and 4 are in regards to the widespread implementation of strategy.

They do indicate some suggestions which you can find in the Results and Discussion section though more information would be needed.

My general thought is this, if you were able to create a system that improved the soil compensation, that would be incredibly valuable. The soil doesn't need to be 100% effective. But any improvement that increases crop yield means more income and less famine. A win for everyone.

Thanks @Mikkel . Your research is interesting . Will give it a read and come back with my major takeaways and course of implementation.

 

[Awakened2022]

Happy Birthday, Aura, congratulations on the GOLD and keep saving the world!

Thanks @Spenny. I hope God continues using me to inspire the rural women to have food security.

 

[DonyaSze]

This is truly inspirational! I’m excited to watch you go into the fast-lane. May 2024 be your best year yet!

 

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[Awakened2022]

This is truly inspirational! I’m excited to watch you go into the fast-lane. May 2024 be your best year yet!

Thank you for the kind words. I am also optimistic about this year given the effort I am putting into this venture. I am already seeing results, and a lengthy update is loading.

May 2024 be your best year too.

 

[Devilery]

Honestly, this is so refreshing to follow, everyone wants to build "cool" businesses - marketing agencies, e-commerce, real estate, etc., and you're filling one of the most basic human needs - the need for food. Not that there's anything wrong with the trendy businesses.

I love it and the way you write is unique (in a good way). Looking forward to reading about your future success, potentially, exporting to other countries, or expanding with other products.