09 November 2006

Hunger Relief Project


Conservation Farming on the right...a beautiful thing! Traditional farming practice on the left.


Relief food from the Canadian Grain Bank used for widows, orphans and those with illnesses.



Touring crops of Zambians who have been through farming educational programs in their communities.


Tim Bootsma and Jonathan enjoying a walk through Zambian fields. Tim and his family work in Zambia with the CRWRC and the Foods Resource Bank. Tim works as an agent in equipping Zambians with new farming and crop ideas to better feed their own people.



A corral built next to a village, youth are bringing cattle into the corral for the night.




Zambians outside of the relief center. They gave us such a kind welcome.





Casava! This plant has deep roots that tasted a bit like a potato? The leaves from the bush are also very nutritous. This plant is being introduced into the area. It can be ground to make brown Nshima, which is a staple food in Zambia that is like a pattie of cream of wheat. The nshima ( pronounced sheema) that we had was made from cornmeal.





2 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:06 am

    Yick!how can no one comment on the africa pictures, they look pretty stinking sweet! and about that casava, how they pull or dig them up without breaking a bunch of those things off? that corn compairison picture is pretty much sweet, along with the others thats alot of bags of grain eh what is it mostly corn, wheat?
    guess who or your a lu

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  2. Hey Lu,
    The bags are full of white corn they call Maize. It is used as relief and is what they grow there. They don't grow what we would think of as normal yellow corn. The difference between the two types of corn is the difference that $5 can make. Last year it took $5.37 per person to enable them to feed themselves. That is nuts too me. The organization that it is with is the Foods Resource Bank. As for the other plant it is the Kasava. It is a pretty tough plant that is kind of like a potato. I guess that is why it didn't break, it was hard to break with your hand if you bit off a chuck it was like a carrot. This is the plant that is used to make tapioca in tapioca pudding. They use it to make nshima a type of firm mash. Many people are resistant to change (as anywhere:)) and don't want to include it in their rotation. This is too bad as it yields about 4 times what good maize can yield and gets ripe in the opossite time of the year as maize.

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