In the twentieth century, gardeners innocently spread the water hyacinth to Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Water hyacinth has striking blue flowers and was used to adorn ornamental fountains. But it escaped and was soon clogging lakes, ponds and municipal water supplies. Water hyacinth is such a survivor that you can drain ponds, let the plants dry out and burn them – then watch them grow again when the pond is refilled. It’s not surprising that control options are limited, particularly in open water, such as lakes and rivers. The plants can be hand removed, by people willing ..read more

In Peru, one way to save endangered, native potatoes is by selling and eating them. I recently learned that some restaurant owners are buying native potatoes directly from farmers. Paul and Marcella and I went with local agronomist Raúl Ccanto to meet Guido Villegas, the Huancayo city official in charge of promoting food security and local commerce. He told us that the government of Peru has a program to feed children (Qali Wamru: “vigorous child”) where the national government sends foodstuffs that can be easily stored and transported ..read more

In the 1500s, when men on sailing ships were casually spreading crop plants from one continent to the next, maize came to Africa. Fortunately, many of the maize pests stayed behind, in the Americas. But slowly, trade and travel are re-uniting maize with its pests. A caterpillar called the fall armyworm is the latest American pest to reach Africa, and it has spread across the continent, threatening one of Africa’s staple food crops. Just as maize originally came to Africa without its American pests, the fall armyworm arrived without its natural enemies, including a couple ..read more

Twelve participants from four development agencies in the Philippines took part recently in a two-week training course to learn the essential skills required to develop high-quality farmer-to-farmer training videos that adhere to Access Agriculture’s strict standards for quality, content and format. The workshop was organised by Access Agriculture in partnership with local partners as part of a project funded by the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Foundation (KGJF). It was held at EcoPark, University of Saint La Salle in Bacolod, Negros Occidental, the Philippines, from 27 ..read more

The Executive Managing Director of CGIAR, a global agricultural research network, Dr Ismahane Elouafi, has praised the achievements of Access Agriculture in reaching farmers, including women and youth, in remote rural areas of Egypt.  Access Agriculture worked with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the Egyptian Agricultural Research Center (ARC) as a key partner in a project funded by the German Government in Egypt. The Innovative Agriculture for Smallholder Resilience (iNASHR) project was implemented ..read more

Soils that have many living organisms hold more carbon and nutrients and can better absorb and retain rainwater, all of which are crucial in these times of a disturbed climate. But measuring life in soils can be a time-consuming activity depending on what one wants to measure. While bacteria and fungi cannot be seen by the naked eye, ants, grubs and earthworms can. In one of the training videos that we filmed in Bolivia, Eliseo Mamani from the PROINPA Foundation, a science and technology organisation, shows us meticulously how you can measure the visible soil ..read more

Emphasising the relevance of the Assamese language versions of ‘Access Agriculture’ training videos on agroecology and organic farming for the smallholder farmers of Assam state in northeastern India, Dhirendra Nath Kalita, Head of Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) of Kamrup district, called it the “the need of the hour.” Dr. Kalita was invited as a distinguished guest to give his remarks during the review session of a Video Translation Workshop, which was organised by Access Agriculture, 1-3 November, in Guwahati, Assam, as part of the ‘Support to ..read more

Soil may be the basis of farming, and therefore of almost all of our food, but farmers and soil scientists see the soil in completely different, if equally valid ways. In Bolivia, I was recently making a video with Paul and Marcella on soil tests that extension agents can do with farmers. Our local expert was Eliseo Mamani, a gifted Bolivian agronomist. Before our visit, Eliseo had prepared three soil tests in collaboration with soil scientist Steve Vanek. One of the tests uses bottles and sieves and cloth to separate out the “particulate organic matter ..read more

Access Agriculture’s innovative model of working with young Entrepreneurs for Rural Access (ERAs) to help scale agroecology knowledge among smallholder farmers has been recognised by several international awards. At a recent workshop held in Kampala, Uganda, Ezra Masolaki, Access Agriculture Entrepreneur coach for East Africa, was invited to throw light upon the ERA model for the benefit of the participants. The workshop was held to discuss plans for the implementation of a specific component of an IFAD-funded Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) project. The ..read more

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