{"id":955,"date":"2016-09-05T06:54:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T06:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/?p=955"},"modified":"2016-09-05T06:54:49","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T06:54:49","slug":"how-to-move-from-ordinary-to-best-agricultural-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/?p=955","title":{"rendered":"How to move from ordinary to best agricultural practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Best practice\u2019 is not even a mouthful but what it means in practice remains unclear to many people who use the phrase. In African agriculture, it takes a lot for a farmer or trader to become a best practitioner. \u00a0Most value chain actors face challenges in identifying sufficient quality evidence that can be translated into best practice. \u00a0In the absence of consensus, they either rely on what is effective locally or depend on external extension agents, most of who lack contextual knowledge. While look and learn visits have become prominent ways through which farmers are expected to acquire best practices, there is lack of empirical evidence. Contextual differences make it difficult to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of conservation agriculture, contract farming and other practices.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Season-informed best practices<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the majority of African farming communities, seasons have a much larger influence on the evolution of best practices. It takes a minimum of three farming seasons of producing a particular crop for a new farmer to attain best practice status.\u00a0 This three year experience pulls farmers closer to best practice, with a farmer using particular crops to move through summer, autumn, winter and spring. Crop behaviour is different during each of these seasons. \u00a0The hot season, commonly called Spring stretches from late August to December in Southern Africa and has its own features which impact crops and livestock in different ways.\u00a0\u00a0 Summer is characterised by fungal diseases due to excessive moisture and too much rainfall triggers extreme crop growth patterns.\u00a0 On the other hand, winter is characterised by low temperatures which limit crop growth.\u00a0 While there are fewer diseases, all crops do not grow fast in winter.\u00a0 During Spring, crops are exposed to excessive heat and low moisture levels.\u00a0 Pests like aphids, leaf minor and white fly are common in this period.<\/p>\n

\"emkambo1\"<\/p>\n

Growth patterns, quality and yields are different in each season, irrespective of inputs. That is why curiosity is very important among farmers. Farmers who are not curious may not notice the difference between spring and summer. Curiosity will enables thorough understanding of crop and livestock behaviour in response to different seasons.<\/p>\n

The next learning curve<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having gone through three cycles of each season, a competent farmer begins to focus on monitoring the changing characteristics of the seasons. One summer season is too wet with floods being experienced while the next can have less rain and less moisture.\u00a0 One winter is too cold and frosty while the other has wild frost, with yet another experiencing no frost at all.\u00a0 One spring is too dry with heat waves. After less than an hour of irrigation the soil becomes completely dry as moisture evaporates.\u00a0 Another spring can have normal heat.\u00a0 Sometimes winter over-stretches into Spring. Late onset of Spring or summer is another characteristic worth monitoring. A three to five year cycle of monitoring seasons is very important depending on area.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The market can only go so far<\/strong><\/p>\n

As demonstrated above, every season has its lessons.\u00a0 If a farmer decides to grow tomatoes only when the price is good, s\/he may not have acquired enough knowledge to understand diseases and pests that occur at different stages of the growing period.\u00a0 The market can only tell you what to produce and when.\u00a0 It can also give you a price guide.\u00a0 However, it may not tell you everything you needed to achieve best practices.\u00a0 Best practice does not come from text books or lectures. You have to practically engage and get your hands dirty.<\/p>\n

A major handicap is that farmers do not document what they see during each season in order to improve.\u00a0 With documentation it should become possible to translate the knowledge into a \u2018Farming Bible\u2019 which the future generation can read and learn from.\u00a0 Due to lack of a documentation culture, most of the existing knowledge is too general to be useful in attaining best practice standards.\u00a0 Farmers who do not record what they see on their farms are vulnerable to wrong advice.\u00a0 Documentation ensures they are able to correct wrong information through comparison as well as mixing and matching what they know with what is coming from outside.<\/p>\n

The mindset is more important than the toolbox<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is through the right mindset that farming communities can leverage the strengths of complementary agricultural programmes. For instance, they can see the connection between livestock and crop programmes that are implemented separately by separate programmes in a one community. That means, as frontline value chain actors, farmers are best placed to identify and explain linkages between different agricultural programmes.\u00a0 Getting a mentor is not enough if a new farmer or trader does not have the right mindset and beliefs because these can limit the application of new skills. \u00a0In addition, the wrong advice can become a mental obstacle to be overcome first before acquiring skills that lead to best practice. \u00a0Ultimately farmers and traders should focus on getting more buyers interested in their commodities than building larger toolboxes.\u00a0\u00a0 Without such capacity and knowledge it is difficult to sustainably implement proven agricultural practices.<\/p>\n

charles@knowledgetransafrica.com<\/a>\u00a0 \/ charles@emkambo.co.zw<\/a> \/ info@knowledgetransafrica.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Website: www.emkambo.co.zw<\/a> \/ www.knowledgetransafrica.com<\/a><\/p>\n

eMkambo Call Centre: <\/strong>0771 859000-5\/ 0716 331140-5 \/ 0739 866 343-6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Best practice\u2019 is not even a mouthful but what it means in practice remains unclear to many people who use the phrase. In African agriculture, it takes a lot for a farmer or trader to become a best practitioner. \u00a0Most value chain actors face challenges in identifying sufficient quality evidence that can be translated into Read more about How to move from ordinary to best agricultural practices<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,19,3,29,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":958,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions\/958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}