Started on the second cultivation on the early planted potatoes. I didn’t really want to cultivate a second time as cultivating when the plants are this big cuts some of the potato roots as well as getting the weeds, but the sedge in places would cause more damage in the long run than some pruned potato roots. Its always a balance. It took us a month to plant the potatoes so they are pretty spread out in maturity from just re-emerging after hilling to a foot tall with small new potatoes. This is good to spread out the harvest. Other people keep telling me not to worry about harvest getting them dug, put in sacks, loaded on trucks and moved over bad roads and sold, but I know how much tonnage is possible if the potatoes do as well as they could. Potatoes produce more tonnage of harvest than any other crop. Its going to be fun.
And finally the pneumatic planter arrived minus some parts so we had to go to the back of the manual in the section called “wing it” and use the fertilizer tank axels to run the planters thus only four planter boxes with pieces of wood stuck in the other suction lines. Got some innoculum air shipped from the US to innoculate the seed. Hopefully it works as I can find no Rhizobium bacteria nodules on the local bean roots.
Since things have slowed down, went down south to visit the southern farm. Things are dry down there - about half the rain and not any for awhile. The potatoes down there aren’t looking that great except in a low area where the water collects and they are wetter. They are starting to flower and haven’t started putting out stolons where the new potatoes will form. That is not good.
The corn and soybeans look good even though they are also drought affected and short, but the soybeans have around 50 pods per plant and some of the corn has two ears per plant. The first rainy season corn they are harvesting now. Its definitely a slow process by US standards, but faster than harvesting it all by hand. They have a combine that loads up these small trailers that get pulled into the farm center to be bagged up by a quite nice bag loader. The nearby goats have learned there is good food to be had and stand by ready for any fallen grain.
The corn is going mostly as chicken feed now but the plan is to produce a porridge with milled corn, soybeans and some sugar so the kids will like it to supply the school lunch program. That will mean getting a soybean roaster that runs of multiple fuels and a de-huller and a hammer mill. This is how IPHD started here in the Congo - feeding school kids. The program ran on imported food and as the program funding started to get transferred from USDA money to the Government of Congo money (read oil money) the idea came up to grow some of the food here and the farms were started. In the new proposed farm bill there is language to change the food aid to buy some of the food locally and some farm groups are fighting it. I know they want to defend a market, but they need to think about their fellow farmers in less developed lands. Food given away is hard on local farmers as its hard to compete against free. The years when food is scarce is when farmers really can make money and upgrade their farms, but feed food erases that situation and farming never advances keeping a developing country possible forever food short. Buying up the local food at a good price and then maybe shipping in food can stop a famine and help local farmers.
Anyway, getting a little political so I’ll close with a picture of a girl in her Sunday best clothes.
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