Bumper crops
Extraordinary yield this year in cropping , fish, eggs and chicken production and honey production generating income and providing protein for staff and families!
Fish / Chicken Farming
Egg, fish and meat chicken production is providing protein for staff and families and generating income. All ponds are performing well yielding good volumes and quality Tilapia. The harvest was graded by size with the larger fish split between team consumption and sale at the local market. The smaller juveniles being further graded and separated into fingerlings for sale to a new spinoff project and some retained to restock the refurbished ponds.
Chicken stocks are recovering from the impact of Avian Influenza with good hatching rate from the incubation programme.
Agriculture cropping
Extraordinary yield this year…Maize (20 tons), soya bean, (16 tons) and rice (10 tons to date, final figure estimated as 21 tons potential), due primarily to the good rains and growing weather. 6 tons of rice has been harvested from land the government has made available so that food can be produced to provide lunch for patients in the Gasenyi Clinic/Hospital. It is estimated that the final yield from the 6 acres could be a further 9 tons. That particular rice crop is part of the Chinese cropping programme.
A fodder growing chamber was provided to produce sprouted grain as a part of an improved feeding program for the Cattle. Its use was stopped because of competing priorities for the available electricity. It has been reactivated without the use of electricity to grow small quantities of sprouted maize for the cattle herd. Which will be invaluable when the ban on free range grazing is enforced from 1 October. The development of improved grain drying and storage facilities.
Honey
50 liters of honey has been produced from the solitary hive setup in 2019. There are plans to increase the number of hives.
COVID-19 effects
Life in Burundi continues to be difficult with COVID-19 rampart across the country resulting in shortage of testing kits at the government hospital and ventilators, hospital beds and mattresses at the Clinic. The family at the farm have all contracted Covid and are struggling without a designated treatment and one ventilator in the Clinic. Ventilators are difficult to purchase due to a world wide shortage.
Shipment of supplies
A shipment of hospital beds and mattresses for the Clinic and consumables for the Pharmacy will be shipped when the manufacture of equipment for ‘Villages of Life’ for the Trade Training Centre in Cibitoke is completed.
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