Following on from my blog on the food crises in East Africa I hope you dont mind if I update you all.
This week our thoughts are mostly on the run in to Christmas with all the preparations for the celebrations of a baby's birth and family time together. All of this is great and I am not criticising it; however there is such a huge emphasis on feasting that it keeps bringing me back to thinking of our friends in Tanzania who are struggling with little enough food.
The harvest in June was very poor and there is little or no food left in people's homes. They are cutting firewood from the bush and selling it for cash to buy food. This accelerates the irregular and declining rainfall.
Our test plot is doing well , we are recording the inputs and the growth of the maize and we plan to start a test drip irrigation project in January with our new team.
The production of Maize in our part of Tanzania is shockingly low. 1 to 2 bags per acre as opposed to 40 to 50 in some parts of Africa.
We will be meeting government representatives and our friends the farmers in January in Tanzania to discuss the project and continuing to price the cost of irrigating our plateau of very poor soil with such low production of food.
As we all eat and drink so much this Christmas please spare a thought for us as we try and work out a way of helping 5000 people feed themselves.
Happy Christmas.