charitable Non-Profit
News from the farms
Ghana 2023
Yakubu
Yakubu, for example, has been able to increase his acreage tenfold and help other villagers cultivate their land "I really started to enjoy farming" he says. Anyone who has ever worked on 50m² with a hoe or spade can understand that! Here we are talking about 3 hectares!
Isaac
Isaac has been able to cultivate 8 acres for himself and also help other farmers prepare their land for planting. In Ghana, rice is not staked, as in Asia, but sown by hand and then tilled - previously with a hoe. Now it is done with a single-axle tractor and a tiller. It's more convenient and you can do a lot more! (1 acre = 0.4 ha)
Alhassan
Alhassan grows cabbage and lettuce. The machines have enabled him to quadruple his acreage and earn a good income. Even in the big city of Tamale (as in Stuttgart, Germany), cabbage and vegetables bring in more income than rice or beans! He also sells his vegetables to other farmers so that they can sell them at the market.
Hand in Hand…
At the OM Malawi site in Ntaja,
13 tonnes of harvested maize are currently being shelled - the process of removing the kernels from the cobs by hand. It is hard work.
Injection irrigation is working!
That's a very encouraging news.
Our Friends in Ghana were very pleased with the very good and uniform emergence of the seeds. They had never seen anything like this before!
(See : News : Newsletter July 2023 for more details).
In the picture below, beans are being sown between rows of peanuts.
first seed emergence
In the meantime 18 single-axle and 40 (out of 80) precision seed drills are in operation in North Ghana. The first operations started 4 weeks ago and already now we can see a much better and denser seed emergence than with the previous manual method. This is also due to a more thorough water absorption capacity of the tilled soil right after the first rain.
Training & Assembly
We met a mechanic last summer who assembled the machines with the farmers and provided training.
Machine delivery I
It took longer than expected for the container to be transported from the port in Tema to Tamale. The delay was due to insufficient labelling of the packages and a duplication of serial numbers, which is not allowed by Ghanaian customs.
Machine delivery II
We were recommended to settle the matter with a “tip”, but we refused because we wanted to settle the customs clearance in an orderly way. After a penalty payment and some correspondence with our Ghanaian customs broker, the correct serial number was transmitted and we could bring the goods to Tamale.
ROTO ROOT SUPPLY
In Schorndorf we have started to develop a "root irrigation device: ROTO ROOT SUPPLY". (pictured on home page) This way water will be provided only where it is needed for the crops. The distributor is equipped with injectors that pierce about 3-5 cm into the tilled soil. The distributor delivers the water across the row of plants directly to the roots. It is supposed to save 50-70% of water.
second harvest
The aim of this kind of irrigation is to allow for an earlier start to sowing. This then allows for a second cycle of sowing and harvesting.
Import
Arrival of the machine in a container from the far east, at the port of Tema/Ghana. Still 600km away from Tamale.
Project in Malawi
Another project supported by Agimpex is to be started together with OM in Malawi. We will be sending single axle tractors to Malawi for this project..
Project in Malawi
In the future, we also want to deal with the production and marketing of fertilizer, which has become extremely expensive worldwide due to the Ukrainian war - not necessarily affordable for countries worldwide.
Agimpex Ghana
To ensure smooth and independent operation, we founded “Agimpex Ghana” with our partners, Dr. Abukari Yakubu and Joshua Konlan.