Soil School Master Class, Demo plot results, Closing Ceremony - Feb 2012

Courses

The last Soil School was held at Mua Research Station in Matei on the 14th to the 17th of January. One combined basic & advance 3 days course and one Master Course.

23 farmers, 3 TTT members and Mike OMF attended the combined course.
14 farmers, Mike OMF and Geoff AVI attended the Master course.

TTT have 200 farmers in place, organized in groups of 5 which with the help of TTT’s volunteer Geoff Dean will continue to implement biological farming on their farms. To help them on their way TTT invited farmers from the groups to participate on the combine Soil School 3 day course. Some groups had none some only a few farmers trained on Soil School before. The groups decided who should attend the School.

TTT gave trees to farmers to plant on their farm. More trees will be provided to the interested farmers. Trees are important on the farms for more a diverse soil life.

The Master Class consisted of farmers who already had been on basic and advance Soil School and who are now competent biological farmers. Farmer’s who understand the concept and are working on implementing the approach and finding solutions to cost effective inputs. They will assist other farmers in solving problems in the coming years.

The closing Ceremony

The closing ceremony was held over 3 days. One day closing of demo plot in Delaivuna with surrounding farmers as guests. One day closing of the Demo plot in Matei with surrounding farmers as guest. One day closing down the whole project.

40 farmers came to the Delaivuna demo plot. The farmers went to the field where they harvested and scaled some of the dalo.

15 farmers came to the demo plot in Matei.

After harvest the demo plots was presented to the farmers in pictures and figures. The pictures showed the growth from month to month and the applications, problems and solutions during the 6 month was discussed. Both demo plots were on land that the farmers have given up on because of pervious poor harvest. The dalo harvested showed an average weight of about 1.14 kg/dalo and good shape. An average of 1 kg dalo is good and you earn money.

The Minister of Agriculture Joketani Cokanasiga opened TTT’s the first Soil School in 2010 and this time he closed the project. TTT had invited 3 speakers on the day – Peter Kjaer from TTT presented the project, the outcome, the challenges and the future – Vasiti Navuku representing UNDP/GEF/SGP spoke about the project’s impact and success, Mike Smith from OMF spoke about the tool that TTT and the farmers now have to work with, and the Minister spoke about the need for the agricultural sector to become truly sustainable in Fiji and encouraged TTT and the farmers to continue to take on the challenge in Taveuni.

Including MPI there were about 70 guests mostly farmers. It was a nice day.