The first stage our Madagascar Lima Beans Farming involved backyard farming from December 2023-December 2024. Due to unavailability of the seeds, we distributed at least 3000 free seeds to our Subscribed Members, Mompreneurs, Mutare, Byo, SA and Western Cape Chapters.
Ultimate Goal?
- Develop a seed bank and move onto big spaces.
- Be food secure and,
- Sell the tasty beans and generate profits,
- Use profits to expand the beans project, and
- Use the profits to invest in non beans farming projects.
So our farmers moved to open fields and in my case made use of my rural area land and how is progress?
December Plants=95% write off due to erratic rains and a stubborn nhuta. Have tried pesticides but the nhuta is getting fatter from the bean seeds.
January Plants: Yes and Yes, finally there is some great progress.
Had underrated trellis support after the earlier disappointment. But looks like we got a lot of work to do. Still a few thousands, but slowly getting there using experience gained from backyard farming.
