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The Martin Richenhagen Future Farm training team have big targets in sight!
Published: 02/12/2020
In 2019, Future Farm team facilitated 1,300 training days.
This year, the target
is 2,000!
2,000 days delivering training on machine operations and agronomy short course programmes for dealers & distributors, machine owners and operators.
The training activity during 2019 saw significant growth as the team took to local communities with door to door promotions of the training programmes. Several outreach visits to institutions that have registered an interested in training previously were also instrumental to increased uptake. With over a decades experience of working with smallholder farmers, General Manager, Kalongo Chitengi was confident that these visits would generate high demand for training in agronomy and mechanization given that these type of courses are in high demand but short supply in Zambia.
The Future Farm team have started to establish partnerships with a wide range of organizations, especially those that support local agripreneurs. These include the Natural Resources College, The Women’s Entrepreneurship Access Centre, a seed company, BHBW and The UN Food and Agriculture organisation (FAO).
Three community roadshows have also helped the Future Farm team provide training in harder to reach communities and gain better understanding of the current needs of smallholder farmers. As a result of taking the training to the doorstep of the community the Future Farm training team were also able to reach many women farmers.
Ben Ngwene is one of the agronomy trainers on the farm who helped facilitate the community roadshows. Here is his reflection of the experience…
“We shared the content from the first two modules of our short course programme with two groups of 30 women, teaching them about agronomy. I received feedback that both groups found the information very beneficial and felt that the course could help them implement real improvements in their day to day farming practices. They could see that the techniques we discussed would deliver better yield results and ultimately more revenue. General questions were asked about cropping, how to treat their residue and what kind of fertilizer to use. Many of the women were very interested in what other courses we could potentially bring to their community. All in all, it was a huge success.”
For more information on upcoming training courses, keep an eye out for our quarterly training calendar or get in touch directly with the Future Farm team.
Visit the contact us section for more information.
