Foundations for Farming

Making A Way For Subsistence Farmers in Africa

Foundations For Farming

The poorest in the world are often hungry, have much less access to education, regularly have no light at night, and suffer from much poorer health.

84% of the world’s 608 million farms are smallholdings; that is, farms less than two hectares in size. Tragically, many small-scale farmers do not even produce enough food for themselves. They are among the poorest people in the world.

Various factors add more pressure to small scale farmers like the loss of arable land, the world’s growing population and land distribution issues. In the past 40 years more than 30% of the world’s arable land has been lost due to soil erosion, climate change, pollution, continual ploughing and heavy fertilization

Conventional farming methods see yields decline and costs rise. We are the first step in transforming farms to apply conservation agriculture, agroforestry, composting and more. Although we focus on small-holdings, the Foundations for Farming principles have been applied from the smallest garden to the largest commercial farm. The Founder of Foundations for Farming, Brian Oldreive, farmed 3,500 Ha using this system and set a national maize yield record that stood for 20 years in Zimbabwe. Some of the many benefits are less soil erosion, efficient water management, improved bio-density and nutrition of the food and increased biodiversity. Climate-smart farming reduces the impact of droughts and makes plants stronger to withstand pests and diseases.

(Source: FfF)

Changing Communities

WayMaker identifies remote communities willing to receive a WayMaker Team. These teams comprise fellow countrymen who are subsistence farmers and have been sent by WayMaker to the Foundations for Farming headquarters in Harare, Zimbabwe, to be trained as trainers.

We aim to raise funds for these communities – provided that they meet the criteria of having a sufficient number of subsistence farmers, each with a minimum plot size of 16 x 39m and willing to take on the Foundations for Farming methodology. The money we raise will turn their desire to be self-sufficient and provide food security for their families and community into reality.

Start Up Inputs

Many of these people are so poor, living well below the poverty line of $2/day, that even though they have the land they are unable to fund the start-up inputs such as seed or fertiliser to start the process of becoming self-sufficient and breaking the poverty cycle.

As part of the Foundations for Farming program WayMaker provides each farmer with all the necessary inputs to get them started.

Water

A free, clean and easily accessible water source is usually the biggest barrier to these communities being successful and so WayMaker also looks to provide a Borehole, tower and solar pumo to these communities too.

Costs

To transform a community forever, giving them access to reliable, clean, water to drink, to water their crops and animals, to allow them to wash, clean and provide sanitation, to teach them how to farm in a sustainable way and feed their families forever costs just £10,000 for the whole community.

Description	Item Amt	Item Count	Cost

Borehole, Tower, Tank and Pump (For 1 Community)	£8,000.00	1	£8,000
Trainer for initial Community Training (6 Days)	£150.00	6	£900
Training materials for students	£5	20	£100
Inputs (Seed, Fertilizer, etc)	£50	20	£1,000
TOTAL			£10,000

Fundraising For Our Next Community

Would you help us? We are currently looking to raise our next £10,000 to transform an entire community and would be so grateful if you would donate to allow us to do it.