https://phys.org/news/2024-09-climate-funds-seeds-resilience.html
'Beaming with smiles, Zambian farmer Mary Dimba points to a newly harvested
crop of maize on her silo. The mother-of-four from Mpande village in Zambia's
Lusaka Province tells how the beginning of the last cropping season was less
stressful than previous ones.
Funds that would have gone into buying seeds during the planting season paid
for her youngest child's school books. This season she sourced seeds for free
from the community seed bank.
"Per the agreed laws governing our seed bank, any farmer that borrows two
kilograms of seed must return the same quantity or more so others can call on
it in the next season," Dimba told
SciDev.Net as she packaged seeds in
plastic containers to send to the bank.
In the past, Mary and others like her wished she could plant her local seed
varieties but lacked the knowledge and skills to be able to select, process and
store seeds from their harvests.
"We have different local varieties of seeds that require less fertilizer to
grow, thrive in dry spells and give good yields. That is why we prefer our
seeds to others," says Mary, who has more than 20 years' experience of
farming.'
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
