On Saturday, July 22nd, representatives from 15 of CEFA's co-ops joined in on an all-morning seminar that dealt specifically with the importance of establishing a cover crop over soil that has been used by crops. Soil improvement is key to sustainable agriculture so 3 different forms of plant cover were discussed – vines, shrubs, and trees - during the first hour. For the next couple of hours, a tour of CEFA's fields and orchards revealed several different methods of planting the cover crops, either in between the rows of trees or scattered throughout the field as a form of fallow. What was amazing was that several had said they were already practicing composting after they had learned about it from another mini-seminar a few months back. So, putting cover-cropping to use is another form of conservation agriculture they were unfamiliar with and were eager to learn about. This teaching session was good timing because they had just established their fruit tree and oil palm orchards and now was the time in the growing season to get cover crops like kudzu and perennial peanut planted and growing.
-- Roy & Aleta Danforth Covenant missionaries to the Central African Republic cell phones: Aleta 011 237 67529 5071 or 011 236 7744 8621 Roy 011 237 66171 7808 or 011 236 7754 9176 email: roy-aleta.danforth@covchurch.org blog Personal: http://blogs.covchurch.org/danforth/ blog CEFA: http://car-cefa.blogspot.com/
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