Access Agriculture

If you are growing tomatoes you need to make sure that you don’t just grow when everyone else is, or you will probably suffer from very low prices. Working in a group and staggering your production can provide a constant market supply of fresh tomatoes.

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As soon as you pick your tomatoes their quality can only ever decrease. The best you can do is to slow down the reduction of quality, by following some practices which reduce damage and harm. The key to getting good quality tomatoes to sell starts with the pickers. If they can avoid damaging the crop, we have a chance.

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Crop rotation, and the use of gypsum, herbal mixtures or beneficial fungi like Trichoderma can control root and stem rot diseases.

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Cassava is a plant with valuable roots which are hidden below the soil. One of the main issues for cassava farmers is how do you estimate the value of your crop… but it is possible to work out the size of your cassava yield before harvest.

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You can easily control aphids by using some organic practices, such as sprinkling ash, spraying a neem solution or planting trap crops.

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In this audio podcast, we will learn from farmers in Southern India how internal worms spread to goats and sheep. We will also see how to prevent and cure the animals with a few simple methods.

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A sick sheep does not grow fast and will sell at a low price because it is thin and the meat will be of poor quality. Some diseases such as PPR and pasteurellosis are mainly transmitted through inhalation and contaminated drinking water. Parasitic worms spread to healthy animals through unhygienic conditions in the shed or by grazing on contaminated pasture.

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The best way to check if you have mango seed weevils is by using sticky bands. Put a sticky band around each tree trunk, at the upper end of the trunk before it branches. The best way to control mango seed weevils is to burn an aromatic mixture to smoke out the pest. Also regularly remove and destroy dropped fruits in your orchard.

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Late blight is caused by moulds that survive in the soil and in residues of crops that had the disease. As the disease spreads very fast, inspect your field every day. If you see sick plants, cut of the sick parts of the plant and burn the affected parts. Never put sick plant parts on your compost as the mould will continue to grow and spread to your field.

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Weather Underground is the name of a weather app which is easy and free to download on your cell phone. The app makes weather forecasts every day for a week. The data is updated constantly if you have an Internet connection.

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In a notebook, you can write down the predictions of the weather based on natural indicators, the actual daily weather, the farm activities and crop performance. This allows you to learn from year to year, share experiences with others and better plan for the future.

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Unlike most botanical insecticides, the plants can take up neem extracts through their roots and leaves, spreading the material throughout the plant tissues. For this reason, neem can help control pests like leaf miners, which feed inside leaves and are normally not affected by sprays that only cover the outside of the plant.

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Unlike most botanical insecticides, the plants can take up neem extracts through their roots and leaves, spreading the material throughout the plant tissues. For this reason, neem can help control pests like leaf miners, which feed inside leaves and are normally not affected by sprays that only cover the outside of the plant.

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Live barriers are made up of lines of native grass, bushes and trees. The native plants are adapted to living with little water and they withstand the strong winds.

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To produce quality cassava planting material, we need to: select a suitable site and prepare the land early, ensure good soil fertility, decide what varieties to grow, and properly handle the planting material.

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In this audio podcast, we will learn about a solution that boosts the crop’s growth, and at the same time protects the crop from pests and diseases.

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The best compost for sack mounds is the one made using poultry manure and plant remains. If you use such compost, the sack mound will yield a lot of vegetables for a long time.

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As our health and the health of our animals are at stake, let us learn from experienced farmers in Tanzania how to properly dry and store our maize.

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By keeping your soil healthy and by planting early, your plants will be strong and less vulnerable to insects and moulds. Once the maize is dry, harvest within the next two weeks. Keep the healthy ears off the ground, otherwise moulds will get on your maize and damage it during storage. Burn all the bad ears. Never feed them to your animals. 

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Women in Benin tell us that there are three important things: select good groundnut varieties, follow good harvest and postharvest practices, and use good processing methods. 

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You can make mulch from any locally available, dry plant material such as grass, or straw. Mulching is easy. And above all, it helps to save you water, time and labour whilst at the same enriching your soil and giving you a better harvest.

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By making best use of farmers’ friends and local plants on the farm, nature will help you control the fall armyworm and reward you with a good and healthy crop.

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Spraying pesticides is expensive and usually cannot control this pest. Visit your field twice a week for the first 6 weeks and kill any egg masses and young armyworms by hand. It is important to do scouting because without it, you will not have a harvest at the end of the day.

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In this audio podcast, we will learn what causes fever, how to recognise an animal with fever and how to handle a simple case of fever on your farm using a few simple tips.

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In traditional hives, the bees make their own wax combs that are often attached to each other, so harvesting the honey is difficult. Honey can be extracted only two or three times a year from a traditional beehive. A modern beehive produces double to triple the volume of honey compared to a traditional hive.

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Most farmers confuse black rot disease with downey mildew. Whereas mildew starts as purplish irregular spots on the leaves, black rot starts as small, yellow-brown, V-shaped areas at the leaf margins.

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With empty fertilizer bags you can sew a container. Place layers of decomposable material in the container and water it. Put the earthworms in after one week. Cover the top of the bed with gunny bags and water it regularly. Make sure the compost is shaded from direct sunlight.

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Cashew trees are mainly grown for their nuts and apples. In a well maintained cashew orchards and associated with annual crops, the trees produce more and yield nuts of good quality.

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Farmers in India tell how the disease first appears in the leaf tip. Finally, the plant dries up. Non-chemical methods can be used to control this disease.

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Storing and managing stock in a warehouse involves three important steps. We should first prepare the warehouse, then store your products on pallets and third, follow and manage the stock in the warehouse.

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Pre-dry your maize before shelling it. Winnow the maize on a tarpaulin and sort it. Dry your maize under a hot sun on a tarpaulin, and turn it over regularly. Before storing the grain, measure the moisture level by checking the sound produced by the grain. Let the grain cool before storing

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Your maize is mature when the leaves and the husks start to dry and turn yellow. Start harvesting improved varieties first and end with local varieties which are more resistant to pest attacks. Dehusk your maize in the field to avoid bringing pests to your home. Properly sort your maize in the field, burn the cobs that have been attacked and store the healthy ones.

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Dr Paul Van Mele, Access Agriculture Director for International Development, speaking on "Digital Extension Systems" at the MANAGE International Conference on “Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services: Innovations to Impact”, 25-27 February 2021. The National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) is an autonomous organisation of the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India, Hyderabad, India.

Watch the presentation on EcoAgtube: https://tinyurl.com/PaulVanMele 

 

Tomato leaf curl cannot be cured by any product. The disease is spread by whiteflies. The best way to control the disease is through prevention. A net house can protect your nursery. A border of cereals around your vegetable field helps keep whiteflies out. Farmers in southern India tell us yellow sticky traps, natural pesticides and various other methods.

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As our land remains under water during the rainy season, our ancestors were already thinking of ways to produce crops in order to survive. They invented the floating garden by using crop residues. We do not need any chemical fertilizers or pesticides, because the floating bed is fertile by nature.

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We farmers, men and women, have the right to sell our seeds, and to conserve and exchange them. If they would forbid us from marketing or selling our potato seed, this would simply end our lives, because that is what we depend on.

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Keeping healthy livestock is a tough task because animals fall sick easily. Many people spend lots of money on medicine to treat their animals. In this audio podcast we will see how to prevent animals from getting diarrhoea and we will also learn how to treat sick animals with herbal medicine.

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Bean leaves are rich in proteins and vitamins. To have them available during the dry season, you can dry and store them. 

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For centuries farmers all over the world have been the guardians of crop seed and the breeders of new varieties. Policy-makers often find it challenging to recognize farmer’s ancient rights to keep and grow their own seed in the face of commercial varieties. But farmers are increasingly aware of their rights and the importance of their own varieties. 

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From the moment a member has saved a certain amount, he or she can start borrowing money to run any kind of business. By saving money together as a group, we can help small businesses to flourish and help each other out in the village.

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You can store fresh tomatoes in a local fridge for a few weeks. A local fridge consists of two earthen pots, placed one inside the other and separated with sand. In addition to storing fresh tomatoes, they can also be dried and used any time. Dried tomatoes can be stored for a year.

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Small scale farmers can struggle to keep their soil healthy, and often resort to buying fertilisers to improve their yield, but with a bit of extra work to make compost, yield can be increased naturally and the soil improved year by year. To turn your rice straw into compost, requires a series of steps that control and accelerate the decomposition by microorganisms. With the right conditions, your compost will be ready in 4 months.

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Without any air, finely chopped green maize ferments without rotting. This is because micro-organisms digest the sugars in the fodder and produce lactic acid, which acts as a natural preservative. The key to making silage is to create the right conditions for a good fermentation.

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The key ingredient to making cheese is rennet. This triggers the fats in the milk to bind together as curds, and the rest of the liquid runs off as whey. Whilst you can buy ready-made commercial rennet in liquid or powder form, in Egypt, rural women prefer to use natural rennet from the curds found in a calf’s stomach.

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A soft fresh cheese can be made and ready for consumption  in less than 1 hour and, and is easily made with some basic kitchen equipment, as we will learn from rural women from the village of Sakkara in Egypt.

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During the lean season, tomatoes become very scarce and consumers buy canned tomatoes at high prices or no longer eat tomatoes. But by processing tomatoes into concentrate, you can use it for one year. And tomato juice can be used for 2 to 3 weeks.

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Saving water, minimum land use, less labour, faster growth, giving a high yield of highly nourishing fodder that will improve your livestock. These are the key benefits in hydroponic fodder production.

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Legumes like pigeon peas take nitrogen from the air and deposit it into the soil.  When pigeon peas are intercropped the root nodules release valuable nitrogen to the other crop.  
Any roots, leaves or stems of the pigeon pea plant that stay in the field also help to improve the soil.

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With grafting, a young shoot from a preferred mango variety is attached to a seedling. The seedling will develop the root and base of the tree. This is called the rootstock. The young shoot that is grafted onto the rootstock is called the scion. This will develop into the canopy.

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In traditional sheds, sheep and goats are often kept on the ground. The animals are in direct contact with their urine and droppings. Because of poor hygiene many animals get sick. You can easily make a raised platform inside your existing shed to solve these problems.

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Farmers selling pumpkins right after harvest get a low price because there are so many.
They can sell them at a better price during the off-season by storing them.

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All across the world, people add condiments to their cooking to make it taste better. In West Africa, many sauces are prepared using a condiment made with seeds from the Néré tree, also known as the African locust bean. In Mali, this condiment is called soumbala. Due to excessive tree cutting in the Sahel region, soumbala has become a scarce and expensive product. Although stock cubes are often used, some women in Mali have developed a good alternative by making soumbala from soya beans.

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A well-managed passion fruit orchard can provide farmers with some good money throughout the year. In this audio podcast, we will learn how to stake passion fruit plants and prune the vines systematically so as to get good yields.

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Lupin can be grown in high or cold areas. Lupin is healthy food, rich in proteins, and good for the soil. In this audio podcast, farmers in Bolivia tell how to keep your field free from anthracnose disease.

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Certain moulds grow on groundnut, maize and other foods. These moulds produce a poison called aflatoxin. To have healthy groundnuts it is important to care for the groundnut during its whole growth, but especially during drying and storage.

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Harvest is a very crucial part of your work as a farmer. If you get it right you will be rewarded with higher yields and better fruit quality – which translates to more income. In this audio podcast, we will explain to you what you need to do to improve your harvesting practice.

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Shea butter is used a lot in cooking, traditional medicine and cosmetic products. However traditional extraction of shea butter doesn’t follow required hygiene rules, this results in unsafe butter that can cause illness in consumers. In this audio podcast, we will learn how women in the South of Mali have improved the production of shea butter.

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By making a base mix that can be fed to all animals, you save time and money. Two thirds of the mix is made from grains, like paddy, maize, sorghum and millet. One third of the mix should be rich in protein and fat. Mill the base mix into a coarse flour. Depending on the type of animal, you then need to add a few other ingredients.

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Fingerlings are extremely delicate. They must be transported, kept and fed well if you want a good harvest. If not, you may lose all the money you invested. Using a nursery pond you can easily grow quality fingerlings to make more profit.

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Azolla fixes nitrogen from the air and stores this in its leaves. Azolla is richer in protein, vitamins and minerals than grains and most green fodder. Because of this and because azolla grows fast and easily in a small area, it makes an ideal addition to feed.

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Coccidiosis and colibacillosis are the most dangerous diseases in rabbits because they are highly contagious. Veterinary products cannot cure rabbits that have been infected with these disease. Luckily, they can be prevented, as we will listen in this audio podcast.

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In this audio podcast, we will learn how to monitor the performance of a rabbit farm. By filling out monitoring sheets with accurate information and by keeping a notebook to systematically record all expenditures. This  will enable better management of the farm and ensuring its profitability.

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In this audio podcast, we will visit the city of Fayoum where a group of women are collaborating in raising chicks by paying close attention to the chicks’ housing, feed and vaccination programs.

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In this audio podcast, we will visit the rooftop brooders of the women in Fayoum – and we will learn from them the key steps for a successful household chick raising business.

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Donkeys, mules and horses are important working animals, many diseases are transmitted by insects such as flies. Flies can transmit a parasitic worm called Habronema that causes several problems in horses and donkeys. There are many precautions which you can take to ensure that your donkeys and horses stay free from this worm and strong enough to carry out all their important work.

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People enjoy cashew nuts, whereas cashew apples are less valued. Leaving cashew apples on the land is an enormous loss of money. However, cashew apples can be processed into a nutritious juice which can be consumed throughout the year.

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Weaver ants help to protect your fruit and nuts from fruit flies and many other pests. If you don’t have weaver ants in your orchard yet, collect all the nests from an ant colony and transfer them to one of your fruit trees. Help the ants to spread to more trees by connecting neighbouring trees with a string or stick. If ants from neighbouring trees fight, they are from different colonies and should be separated. Cut any branches that connect both trees. Apply ash to your arms and feet, or to the branch on which you will stand, to pick the fruit.

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It takes a few minutes for a fruit fly to find a suitable spot on the mango and inject her eggs under the skin of the fruit. But even in that short time, the weaver ants will have either chased her away or have captured her. Their scent also helps. When other insects detect the scent of weaver ants, they prefer to stay away.

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One fruit fly can lay a few hundred eggs during her life. Fruit flies puncture the skin of fruit to lay their eggs, which cause the fruit to drop prematurely and rot. The worms that hatch from these eggs leave the spoilt fruit after one week and crawl into the soil where they develop into fruit flies. From one infested fruit many fruit flies can develop, so never leave any fruit on the ground in the open air.

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Fruit flies inject their eggs in fruit. A single fruit fly can lay hundreds of eggs, which turn into white worms that eat the inside of fruit. If no action is taken, fruit flies quickly increase in numbers and can destroy your entire crop. Always combine different methods: • Place traps; • Use food baits; • Encourage weaver ants; and • Collect and destroy any fallen fruit.

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Onions grow well under many different conditions, but when grown in the rainy season onions have a greater chance of getting sick. Onion diseases can make the leaves fold and reduce your yield. Diseases can spread with soil, seed or infested crop residues.

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Onions have few roots and shallow roots and therefore can take up nutrients from the top soil only. This explains why it is crucial to pay particular attention to making your soil fertile when you want to grow onions.

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Onions need rich, fertile soil. Only grow onions once in 3 years in the same field. Plant the onions on raised beds, especially in the rainy season. Transplant when the onions are about 6 weeks old. Plant the onions 10 centimetres apart. By taking good care of your onions, the onions will take good care of you.

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Onion seedlings need a healthy, loose soil. Add well-aged manure or compost. In the rainy season you need to raise the seedbed so the onion roots will not rot. If you use quality seed, most of the seed will germinate and you need much less of it. Onion seedlings need room to grow, so do not plant them too close together. Put the seed in lines, 5 to 10 centimetres apart and 1 centimetre deep. Cover the seeds lightly with fine soil.

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Let us learn from the experiences of some innovative farmers in Ghana who make more money: by producing onions when there are few of them on the market; by storing them until the price comes up again; and by selling directly to clients in urban markets.

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Modern dairy plants use pure, fresh milk to make milk powder, cheese, yoghurt and other products. The processing plant can only make its products from pure milk. When water is added, the milk is diluted, or weakened, and it is not good for processing into dairy products.

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Antibiotics are drugs used for killing germs. The drugs can be given by mouth or injected into the animal’s muscle or vein. These drugs go directly into the bloodstream. The blood carries the drug to the udder where it will get into the milk.

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Ticks are small creatures like insects that attach to the body of animals to suck their blood. Ticks cause diseases like skin lesions. The animals will become skinny and no longer produce milk.

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Milk spoils because of germs that are too small to see. The germs grow in the milk and spoil it. Germs multiply faster in warm milk than in cold milk. So move the milk to the collection centre within 30 minutes of milking, or the milk will start to spoil.

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Modern dairy plants buy fresh milk from local farmers and herders to make into many different products. The company pays a fair price, but requires strict hygiene: they only buy milk that is clean and fresh.

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Farmers in Madagascar show how following four key principles can give you a good rice harvest despite the presence of striga.

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Maize grains have to be very dry and clean before you store them. The grains will stay free of pests and diseases for a long time in a metal granary, if you store them correctly.

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A traditional Central American practice is to bend over the maize stalk to help dry the maize and to protect it from disease and pest damage. If you do this at just the right time, you will harvest more. Maize grains keep growing until a black spot appears at the base of the grain. At that time, the plant has lost all of its green color, this is when you bend the maize stalk, to allow the grains to keep drying.

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Maize tar spot is a serious pest of maize. To help prevent it, it is important to burn the crop residues from the previous year, or plant your maize in land that did not have maize the year before. Some maize varieties are resistant to this disease.

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Farmers in Guatemala explain how to grow beans in hot, lowland areas by first selecting a bean variety that is adapted to the heat. They plant the beans in the winter, and sometimes have to provide irrigation. The beans can be planted alone or between the rows of maize.

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Contour hedgerows slow the speed of water coming down the slope and allow the water to infiltrate. They also allow the washed away soil and nutrients to settle out above the hedgerows. You can plant many different grasses, depending on what you need and what is locally available.

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Relay cropping beans between rows of maize helps to fertilize the maize, they can be planted before the maize is harvested. Plant them two to a hill and 25 centimetres apart. After you harvest the beans you can store them in a metal granary.
 
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Stone lines induce a natural process of terracing as they trap sediments. They are also built to rehabilitate eroded lands. Farmers in Kenya show how they construct stone lines. 

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Land in Tororo district in Uganda has been intensively used and the soil fertility is low and declining. This audio podcast features a possible solution - using urine as a fertiliser.

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In Kenya, WRUAs first began forming in the 1990’s. They are established by communities along rivers and guarantee the participation of their members in all management decisions taken on the use of the river water. 

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As individual farmers lack resources to invest in, or learn about, Conservation Agriculture. This audio podcast features a group in Kenya that has come together to share knowledge and equipment and to assist each other.

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In Kenya, small-scale farmers stabilise river banks and reduce rainwater runoff from nearby plots by planting trees and grasses.

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Wooden stakes are the strongest support for climbing beans and can be used for many seasons, but wood is in high demand for construction and fuel wood. Farmers in southwest Uganda tell us different ways of staking beans, with or without wood.

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Many pineapples are wasted, because they cannot be kept fresh for more than a week. By drying pineapples farmers can reduce waste and earn more money throughout the year.

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Farmers and vegetable sellers find it hard to sell leafy vegetables even a day after harvest because the leaves spoil quickly, but solar drying allows farmers to reduce losses and sell leafy vegetables out of the main harvest season.

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Across the world, people eat bananas and plantains. While some prepare banana as part of their main meal, many just eat it as a fruit. Once harvested, bananas don’t keep long and are easily damaged during handling and storage. But it is possible to turn your bananas or plantains into another nutritional product, namely flour.

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Dairy farming is a source of food and income for many households, but to make money, it is important to produce good milk and lots of it. However, milk can easily be spoilt or dirtied and then buyers will refuse it. This audio podcast features how good hygiene and proper hand milking will help you get good returns for your milk.

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The industry requires sesame seeds that are all of the same colour, size, and oil and starch contents. For this, you need varietal purity, meaning that all of the sesame has to be of the same variety. Mixed sesame seeds are difficult to sell and buyers pay less for them.

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Learn how to spot banana weevils, how to keep them out of new banana fields and how to trap them.

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In this audio podcast, we will learn how to help the new mother: to recover from the loss of blood; clean the womb and reduce pains; feel good about herself; and get back her appetite and energy. A healthy mother can feed her baby well with breast milk, which helps keep the baby in good health.

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