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Exchange visit: an effective way to learn from practical experiences of organic farmers

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 When properly managed and wisely used; exchange visits are key for sharing knowledge, experience, and good practices.  Ecological Organic Agriculture is a knowledge intensive agricultural process in which farmers, extension officers, students and other practitioners can learn from each other as the process is going. Farmer to farmer, farmers to extension agents, farmers to students and vice versa, exchanges can help improve small producers’ technical and organisational capacities. It provides opportunities to learn from each other, customise, and adopt successful farming practices and techniques.

In November 2020, the Institute for Sustainable Development (https://www.isd-bio.org/), Green Flower Foundation (https://greenflowerfoundation.org/) and Pesticide Action Nexus-Ethiopia brought together organic vegetable grower farmers, extension agents, organic horticulture students and instructors in a learning exchange to share experiences and practices that can help each parties learn from each other and amplify organic farming.

The exchange visit, conducted in Holeta Oromia Ethiopia, was started with trainings on plant protection techniques, observation and scouting techniques of pests and diseases, preparation of recipes from locally available inputs. Farmers, extension agents, students and instructors have got the chance to interact, discuss and share experiences of organic farming in their respective areas.

Field visits and one to one discussions were organised for Bishoftu Polytechnic College Organic farming students. The team has visited an outstanding woman lead farmer called Worke who is successfully implementing organic farming in her backyard. She shared the ups and downs she faced since her decision to switch to organic farming. In her speech, she indicated that she made an insignificant amount of money from her organic farm for two and half years. “After two and half year hard work, the yield from my organic farm started increasing, and I started my economic returns” said Mrs Worke.

A visit to Mr Fekadu Kebed’s organic farm was another inspiration. He grows about eight different crops in his small plots via row and mixed intercropping. Maize, ocimum, Swiss Chard, Apple, Enset, Kale, Tomato, peach are some of the crops one can see in his plot.  He explained about his farming practices – agronomic and plant protection practices. “Market is not a problem for me as my customers come here to collect the vegetables right from the farm” – said Mr Fekedu when students and asked him about market issue.

All the farmers have vermicomposting pits set up in their backyards. The students have got the chance to touch and feel the vermiworms, which were new to most of them. It was an important experience.




 

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 15, 2020 at 1:28 PM

    Good opportunity for students who can be future organic farmers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 15, 2020 at 5:10 PM

    Farmers are excellent teachers. They share their life long experiences.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Green Flower FoundationNovember 16, 2020 at 12:12 PM

    Thank you very much to ISD for giving our students this great opportunity to learn and interact with professionals in organic agriculture!

    ReplyDelete

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