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Hello ,
Second year of SMART training Center Petauke ended well
The second year of the SMART training center in Petauke has been successfully completed. Douglas Mudenda, the manager and his team, worked very hard and achieved all the goals for the second year. A brief overview of what they have achieved:
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- 46 small farmers have received business, financial and marketing training.
- 32 farmers have received a partially sponsored pump that is used for household and income generating activities. Almost all farmers have therefore been able to expand their vegetable garden or have started one.
- 30 farmers have received agricultural training. They have learned how to make compost from local resources and how best to start or expand a vegetable garden.
- A total of 1,113 people have been given access to household water. This number has been reached because the 32 farmers who have received a partially sponsored pump share their water with their immediate neighbors.
- What we also notice is that word of mouth advertising is already working well, even though the center in Petauke is only two years old. In the second year, 16 self-supply pumps were sold. This means that the people who purchased a pump paid for it entirely themselves and did not need any form of subsidy. A total of 1,969 people gained access to water without the need for sponsorship. Among them was a school and a local Chief who purchased a pump for his community, the rest were small-scale farmers.
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Petauke's team was able to make this possible thanks to donations from Skat Foundation and Wilde Ganzen (Skat received funding from Eurofins foundation, Kanton Zürich Gemeinnütziger Fonds, Däster Schild Stiftung and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC).
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Below you can see a video of Jelita Phiri in which she explains what the past year has meant to her.
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Portable solar pump for irrigation
Partly thanks to their contribution, Jacana has completed and tested the prototype for a portable solar pump and we are now in the process of finding fund to scale this up, so that it can be sold Zambia wide. Who knows, maybe in the future throughout Africa.
Jacana is very proud that 116 farmers are now using this prototype to their satisfaction for their vegetable gardens. In the video below you can see how the pump works.
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Presidential declaration of drought as a national disaster
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Yesterday (29 Feb 2024), the Zambian president officially announced that it is estimated that 45% of Zambia's harvest will fail this year and 1 million farming families will be affected by drought due to El Niño. The energy supply will also be affected because the reservoirs contain insufficient water.
The government will adjust its budget and, among other things: provide emergency food assistance, import food and energy, the army will assist with irrigation.
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The government is also trying to get farmers to irrigate their land and also cultivate their land during the dry season.
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DESPITE NATURE'S CHALLENGES, YOUR UNWAVERING COMMITMENT TO COMBAT EL NIÑO SITUATION THROUGH INVENTIVE IRRIGATION METHODS, LIKE OX CART-DRIVEN WATER BOWSERS AND WHEELBARROWS, IS COMMENDABLE, AND QUITE SIMPLY HEROIC. YOU HAVE OUR FULL SUPPORT.
TO OUR VALUED GLOBAL COMMUNITY AND COOPERATING PARTNERS, WE APPRECIATE YOUR PROMPT AND SUBSTANTIVE RESPONSE AND ASSISTANCE. OUR GRATITUDE EXTENDS TO YOUR GOVERNMENTS AND THE PEOPLE OF YOUR NATIONS.
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