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Development Farming and Agriculture Food Security Leadership

Championing A Holistic Approach to Farming

Canadian Foodgrains Bank has one, marvelous goal: a world without hunger. One of their endeavours is to work with front-line organizations to provide training in conservation agriculture to smallholder farmers all over Africa, particularly eastern and southern Africa.

In February, CFGB held an Africa-wide networking workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe for project leaders and trainers from the projects and organizations they fund. Roughly 130 delegates attended the four-day conference, and I was one of them. Three of the days were spent listening to presentations from various organizations and projects: extension strategy, scope, what was working, what wasn’t, lessons learned, thoughts on sustainability, etc.

Offering incentives does not change a person's heart.
Offering incentives does not change a person’s heart.

I was asked to present what we were doing at Seed of Hope. While most presenters focused on technology, value chains, and numbers “served,” I focused on the paramount importance of focusing on mindset and world view issues, as well as our conviction that incentivization – giving inputs to farmers on condition of changed practices – is counter-productive. In the question and answer time, I was able to share the strengths of the Farming God’s Way tool in addressing mindset issues through the gospel. As most of the organizations and projects are faith-based, most had at least heard of Farming God’s Way. It was a good opportunity to reaffirm the tool as a crucial one in the battle to break the yoke of poverty on the African continent.

Whole hearted investment leads to return.
Whole hearted investment leads to return.

I found myself asking, “Why is there food insecurity?” It is an important question because food insecurity doesn’t exist primarily because farmers aren’t practicing good conservation farming methods.

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CA extension on the scale we need will also fail if we don’t teach farmers how to think of and manage their operations as businesses. Are farmers making a profit? Are they running their operations well from a financial perspective? If farmers aren’t making a profit, they are becoming poorer. Making a loss can happen for many reasons related to poor business practices – quite apart from their farming practices.

Good stewardship is about honouring our God given responsibility and giving our best to the land and our communities. It is about a mindset of building a future together with the rewards being healthy interdependence and sustainability. I left Zimbabwe feeling convinced that continued championing for the holistic approach that we teach through Farming God’s Way is essential so as not to lose our way.

DW

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