FFD2018 bougouni

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Africa RISING Mali
Farmers Field Day
17 October 2018
Bougouni
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Event photos available at: https://flic.kr/s/aHskGUzHxT

Introduction
Africa RISING is a regional research for development program funded by USAID through Feed the Future (FtF) initiative in Mali and Ghana. The Mali component is lead by ICRISAT has initiated the farmer field days since 2016 in the technology parks installed in the districts of Bougouni and Koutiala to showcase promising technologies and innovations developed by research teams for sustainable mixed intensification farming systems in Soudan Guinean zones of Mali.

The 2018 Africa RISING Farmers’ Field Day was organized by ICRISAT and project partners: AMEDD, FENABE, IER, World Veg with the participation of projects and NGOs such as ARDT-SMS, PGDTE , TAAT, EUCORD, MALIMARK and CMDT.

Several high ranking officials participated the 2018 farmers field day along with researchers, extensions agents and invited students. In Bougouni the district governor, the regional director of forestry of Sikasso, the presidents of the district council of Bougouni attended the event. and the students of the institute of agricultural training of Bougouni. In Koutiala the field day was honored by the district governor and the Mayor of M’Pessoba. The director of M’Pessoba Agriculture Trainining Center (C.A.A) and students from Segou University, institute of agriculture training in Bougouni, Polytechnic Institute of Malick Sidibe of Koutiala and their lecturers attended the field days. The schedule of the visit along with list of participants and their contact address is provided in annex 1 and 2.

Bougouni District Farmer Field Day
The farmer field day of Bougouni took place on October 17th 2018 at 11h00 in the Technology Park of Madina located at 20 km from Bougouni town. The field day was organized and facilitated by AMEDD and FENABE. A total of 300 persons participated the event (AR Farmers: 50, Students: 50, PGDTE farmers: 50, ARDT partner farmers: 75, Extension Worker: 25). The field day in Madina started at 11h30 by the welcoming word of FENABE and the village chief of Madina.

These interventions were followed by the welcoming remarks of the mayor of Kouroulamini, the intervention of the president of the district council of Bougouni and the project coordinator who encouraged farmers’ to take advantage of these field day visits and congratulated participants for their presence at the event. The field day was launched officially by the governor of Bougouni who thanked the researchers for their engagements to develop Malian Agriculture and improve farmers’ livelihoods in the region of Sikasso.

Visiting Technologies:
After the official launching of the field day participants proceeded to a guided tour. The first demonstrationwas validated technology on dual purpose sorghum variety plots (soubatimi, tiandougoucoura and tieble) and soil fertility management trials with cow manure, mineral fertilizer, and poultry manure on three sorghum varieties (soumba, Pablo and Tieble).

A key moment of the guided tour was the visit of good practices of sustainable land water management demonstration plots: CBT, Intercropping (Maize and Cowpea) and Microdising installed by the Projet de Gestion Durable des Terres et des Eaux funded by UNDP in partnership with ICRISAT and FENABE.

This was followed by a quick demonstration of chopping machine which is used to chop sorghum stems into more digestive animal feed.

Participants proceeded then to visit the improved vegetable cultivars trials conducted under the lead of the World Vegetable center.
After the visit of the demonstrations, the discussions started and research teams were asked questions related to:

  • Who is organizing the field days? How to sustain the organization of the field day?
  • Why dual purpose sorghums are attacked by birds and anthracnose disease?
  • Are these attacks natural or caused by something artificial?
  • Is poultry manure accessible in quantity and quality to farmers?
  • How do they use poultry manure?
  • Do farmers’ use cow manure and chemical fertilizer at the same time?

The discussion session was followed by testimonials of farmers regarding the technologies presented during the field day.
Fousseini Samake: A 45-year-old farmer and seed producer in Flola village reported that he currently provides dual purpose sorghum seeds to his fellow farmers’ from surrounding villages. In 2018 the seed of Soubatimi he distributed freely to other farmers’ cover nearly 4 hectares.
Farmers appreciated soubatimi because it is more digestive and the meal have a good taste and be conserved longer. This sorghum variety yield higher than the local variety and the stems are more palatable to animals.
After lunch the visitors headed to visit demonstration sites of EUCORD who is a partner of ARDT-SMS in Madina and Flaboula where participants discovered how farmers’ are producing hybrid sorghum variety seeds (Pablo) and improved soil fertility management practices.