Tomato/Maize Trials

Our demonstration garden at Mziza is primarily platform for teaching about irrigation, but it also serves as a place for trials and experiments. Over the past four months, we have been conducting trials on maize and tomatoes.

We planted 2,000 individual tomato plants on area of 4,500 square feet, or about 1/10 of an acre. We spent $50 excluding labour to grow the plot for 4 months. At harvest, we collected 400 kilograms (880 lbs.) of tomatoes and sold them for about $190. This success can easily be replicated and exceeded by our farmers, if they manage their crops properly. The income from such a small plot would be equivalent to more than 3 months living expenses.

For our maize, we wanted to attempt early planting with irrigation, that would be met with rains mid-growth. This technique is effective when rain patterns are unpredictable. After the first 6 weeks of irrigation, the seasonal rains took over watering duties. This relieved the farmers of the workload of irrigating the maize at exactly the time they needed to be planting other crops at the start of the rains. In late February, the maize was ready for eating as corn on the cob. By March, it was ready for making nsima, the local staple dish. 

Farmers can adopt this technique of early planting and preempt the hunger that strikes most communities in February-April. Many farmers are already using this method, and that will be a good thing this year, when rains have stopped before the rain-planted maize has matured. Early planted maize will provide a small, but needed bump to the annual harvest and give farmers more time to look for other solutions to the below average yields.

Composting Training

As training continues, farmers will get out of the classroom and into their fields. The first test of the trainees' muscle is to make a compost heap of 8 cubic meters, a 2 by 2 meter cube of grass, leaves, manure, and crop residues. The compost heap will decompose into about 1 ton of nutrient rich compost that can be used to grow 1/4 acre of corn or vegetables. It is equivalent to about $50 worth of fertilizer.

Composting not only provides nutrients but reduces the risk involved when investing heavily in chemical fertilizer. If the crop fails due to weather or the farmer falls ill during the season, the fertilizer is wasted. Compost does not wash out of the soil as quickly and only costs the farmers time to gather the composting materials.