Farming God's Way Review

By Sara:

Over the years, I have had a lot of interactions with Farming God's Way (FGW).  This is a form of conservation agriculture developed in Zimbabwe in the 1980s.

Conservation agriculture has three main principles:
1) Reduce soil disturbance through minimum or no-tillage
2) Keep the soil covered
3) Mix and rotate crops

There are other aspects, but those are the main ones we need to consider now.  Farming God's Way fits into this classification by promoting: 1) no-tillage, 2) mulching, and 3) crop rotation.

In 2014, I participated in a Farming God's Way training in Kenya.  I have also visited places around Uganda where the method is taught, including our region of Teso as well as Kabale in southwestern Uganda.  I've also talked to many missionaries who are trying to teach Farming God's Way or are interested in it.

Preparing planting basins at FGW in Kenya:

Farming God's Way is a very structured approach to farming.  This makes it extremely easy for anyone to try, whether they know anything about agriculture or not.  For example, it gives exact measurements for spacing between rows of crops, size of planting holes, and depth at which to plant seeds.  It makes it a very easy method for anyone to reproduce, no matter how little or much they know about agriculture.  However, this very specificity is also a problem since it doesn't give options for people to adapt it to different conditions.  

In my region of Teso, many people still have pretty large gardens - several acres - and often prepare the garden by ploughing with oxen.  According to Farming God's Way, you need to dig planting basins with a hoe and should not plough because that disturbs the soil too much.  It is true that in conservation agriculture it is important for farmers to reduce soil disturbance.  However, telling people to stop ploughing and start digging their large garden with a hand hoe is a huge change and seems to most farmers like moving in the wrong direction.  Additionally, in Farming God's Way, you keep the soil covered with mulch.  First of all, it is extremely difficult to deeply mulch a several acre garden.  Secondly, in Teso, termites usually have eaten all the mulch a couple days or weeks after you put it down, making it seem like a bunch of work for nothing.  

Personally, I would prefer to offer Farming God's Way as one option in the category of Conservation Agriculture.  In Teso, you can still do conservation agriculture through minimal tillage - by using an ox-drawn ripper instead of a plough, and keeping the soil covered - by intercropping with cover crops.  The cover crops can also be chopped down and used as mulch which was grown right in the place where it is needed.

Farming God's Way is a method amazingly suited to other regions, though.  When I visited Kabale, in southwestern Uganda, some years ago, I saw people who had great success with Farming God's Way.  They have very small pieces of land - often less than 1/2 an acre - which have been seriously degraded.  Because the land is small, it is easy (and normal) to dig by hand and also possible to cover the whole thing with mulch.  The cooler temperature and higher elevation there makes termites less of a problem.  And since it has been so degraded, even small changes like digging planting basins (and putting manure/fertilizer in each basin) and mulching have a big impact on crop yield.  

In Kabale - tiny non-FGW potatoes from one plant (top photo) verses a greater quantity of bigger potatoes from one FGW plant (bottom photo):

There are some great biblical teachings that go along with Farming God's Way, such as an emphasis on tithing and encouraging farmers that they can tithe from their harvest, instead of thinking that they must have cash in order to tithe.  It also is helpful in reminding farmers to make good use of the times and seasons God has created by planting at the right time and weeding at appropriate times.  I love how FGW emphasizes God's role as a farmer who planted the first garden in Eden and who sets an example to us as farmers.  No one needs to be ashamed of having the high calling of working as a farmer, following God's example.  

On the other hand, however, there are some biblical applications which I believe are not good interpretations of the Bible.  One example comes from Leviticus 19:19 "Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals.  Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.  Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material."  Based on this verse, FGW tells farmers it is wrong to grow two types of crops together in a garden (intercropping).  But why is this verse in the law?  What kind of law is it?  A moral law which holds true to all people in all times?  Or a civil law specific to the nation of Israel which was fulfilled in Jesus, the perfect Israelite, but no longer followed by people who are citizens of other nations?  Or a ceremonial law meant to keep the Jews clean and different from people of other religions - fulfilled in Jesus, but no longer practiced by Christians who have been made clean once and for all by Jesus' sacrifice on the cross?

In discussion with a FGW teacher, he told me that it is bad because you will get less yield if you do this.  It is true that if you grow, say beans and maize in the same field, you won't get as many beans as if it was just beans.  And you won't get as much maize as if it was just maize.  But you will get more total volume of harvest.

The name "Farming God's Way" also makes me uncomfortable - I have met a farmer who asked, "if this is farming God's way, then are all other ways of farming "farming Satan's way"?  Even when we think we have the best method of doing something, it seems a bit presumptuous to call it "God's way" unless it is explicitly in the Bible. 

In conclusion, I think that Farming God's Way can be a good and useful way to do conservation agriculture - in some places.  But it is important to closely observe the farming context and traditional ways of agriculture before assuming that one method can fit all places.  There are always improvements we can make to how we farm, but the improvements will be different depending on where we begin and what our climate and setting is.

Liberia Farmer Visits

 By Sara:

While Anthony and Jonny taught HWHIA in Liberia last year, I had the exciting opportunity to come along with them and then go around visiting various groups of farmers both to learn and to teach, plus spending time with some old friends.

First of all, there are some fascinating similarities and differences between Uganda and Liberia.  Liberia is a little farther north of the Equator, but more or less directly east of Uganda, on the other side of the African continent.  Since it is on the ocean, there were lots of coconut trees (and fresh coconuts being sold by the side of the road as street food), not something you usually see in Uganda.  But otherwise, lots of similar vegetation and crops which I recognized, like cassava, sweet potatoes, taro, plantains, rice, and the same species of "local"greens.

Cassava and bananas:

 

 

Rice and taro:

 

 

 Coconuts:

I enjoyed learning from the farmers I visited and also got to share with them from my work in Uganda.  I taught several groups The Earth is the Lord's Bible studies and then we compared farming in Uganda with farming in Liberia.  Depending on the interest of the groups, I then taught on topics like caring for the soil, the benefits of eating moringa (and how to cook it), and integrated pest management.

I got to visit with a group of people from the Christian Reformed Church of Liberia who loved The Earth is the Lord's Bible studies.  They were amazingly quick in understanding how to do the Bible studies and made excellent SMART action plans.  Some of them plan to use the Bible study method for Sunday school or for doing Bible studies with their children. 

They appreciated learning how to eat moringa leaves - moringa grows there, but most people don't know it can be eaten as food.  There is also leucaena and mucuna, both of which are useful for feeding animals, something most of the farmers did not know.

The population density in Liberia is lower than in Uganda, so many small farmers have 100-200 acres!  Which might sound small to an American farmer, but would be unbelievably huge for a family farm in Uganda.

Liberian farmers were shocked that most Ugandans don't eat sweet potato leaves or cassava leaves, which, according to them, are SO GOOD!  And they felt bad for Ugandans who only eat rice for special occasions, rather than every day like Liberians do, since it is their staple food.  Liberia also has a lot of palm oil trees (they grow naturally in many areas), so everyone cooks with palm oil.  They thought Ugandans are really missing out on tasty food by not having fresh palm oil for cooking.  Here are some sweet potato leaves on their way to a market:

After I visited one of the groups of farmers hosted by Joseph, his wife Musulyn taught me how to cook cassava leaves.  I agree with everyone that they are very tasty.  Though we used way fewer hot peppers than Musulyn usually cooks with, for my sake.  I was thankful because it was plenty spicy for me the way we cooked it together!

Joseph took me to visit an amazing farmer, named Ma Sue, almost near the border to Sierra Leone.  I have to say, I thought there were bad roads in Uganda, but they don't really compare with the roads in Liberia.  And I didn't experience the worst ones...  

Ma Sue is an amazing lady.  She grew up as a Muslim, but converted to Christianity.  She had 10 children, but all of them died, so she decided to dedicate her life to caring for orphans.  She has over 300 acres of family land, more than she can even farm, but there was lots of rice, palm oil trees, plantain, sweet potatoes, cassava, cocoa, vegetables, and fruits.  All of that food she grows is used to feed the orphans and needy children she cares for. 

During the rainy season, everything is (even more) flooded, so there are these walkways through the fields for people to get around on:

Ma Sue is the lady next to me in the blue blouse:

It rains WAY more in Liberia than in Soroti.  They told us it was the dry season there, yet it rained every day we were in the country...more rain than we get per day during the rainy season in Soroti.  This does create a challenge where it is difficult to dry and store crops for later, but it doesn't matter too much for them in terms of food security since people can grow things most of the time, even during the dry season.  In fact, some people said it is easier to grow food in the dry season since rain can be too much for many crops to handle in lowland areas. 

Not only did I get to visit with farmers, though, I also got to visit a school started by Boimah, someone Anthony and went to Calvin Seminary with 15 years ago!  It was great to reunite with him and see the good things he and his wife have been doing since he graduated.  They started this private Christian school which is affordable to pretty much everyone in the community.  Even though they can't pay the teachers much, the teachers are dedicated and appreciate that they are always paid on time.

 On Sunday, we also were able to go to his church and hear him preach.
 

Finally, we reunited with our friend Job, who was an intern at the World Hunger Relief farm in Waco, TX with me in 2013.   

Job is a biology teacher, but also teaches his students about agriculture.  He is passionate about encouraging youth to appreciate farming as the most honorable profession, so he is in the process of starting an organization to train young people on farming.  He is about to retire from teaching, so that is what he plans to do during retirement.  

Here's a good memory with Job at his first experience of American football back in 2013:

HWHIA trainings Liberia and Ethiopia

By Anthony:

I continue to travel a lot to teach Helping Without Hurting in Africa to development workers and church leaders so I am not writing blog posts about every training. But when we did a recent training in Liberia, one of my plane tickets was funny (my middle name is Diedert). 

While in Liberia Sara and I got to meet our good friend Job Carpenter who worked with us on the Farm in Texas way back in 2013. 

We also were reunited with a Calvin seminary classmate Boimah Mason, who we knew way back in 2008.

The Liberia training was hosted by Christian Aid Ministries, an organization largely supported by Anabaptists. The humility Christian Aid Ministries showed continues to amaze me. They were willing to invite us from other denominations to come and teach their staff and their church leader partners. This led to rich theological and cultural discussions where we all learned a lot from one another. But even more than this, they had humility to invite us to lead our training which in a sense is inviting self-critique of their organization and how they do their work in Liberia. I was so impressed by their willingness to learn and willingness to make changes to how they do their programming. Let me also say that I learned a lot from them! I now have many Anabaptist friends who I deeply admire and count myself richer for it. We really had great times of worship and prayer together.

Here is our host family, Ryan and Melody and their children. They were among the families that were abducted for weeks when they were missionaries in Haiti. You may remember their story from the news. What a wonderful family. We were so blessed by them.

One of the things we are most excited about with this group is their commitment to HWHIA. Two of their staff, Chauncey and Marvin (below), traveled from Liberia to Uganda to take Part 1 of the training. Then they went back and trained their staff and partners in Part 1 on their own. Then they invited us to come and teach Part 2 to everyone. Now they are starting to plan more trainings with community members and church leaders which they will lead themselves.

One of the more engaging and controversial discussions we always have is about how to support orphans and other types of vulnerable children. There are good reasons to have institutions where some children can be taken care of while waiting for families. But some orphanages should be closed. We discuss all the pros and cons of orphanages and child sponsorship. These things are complex and there are no simple answers. You can see our book for more detail.

When we were in Liberia we learned about how Christian Aid Ministries withdrew support from many orphanages a couple years ago. They realized that dependency had been created, and that the orphanage system in Liberia was really being abused. The number of orphanages in the country was far beyond the need for the real number of orphans. Their assessment was confirmed because in the case of many of the orphanages, when the financial support was withdrawn, the orphanages emptied out. The parents of the children simply came and picked up their children to take them home. It turned out in many cases that there were very few real orphans in many of the institutions. Many parents had created false narratives to get free support for their children. This doesn't mean Christian Aid has stopped helping children in Liberia. I applaud them for reevaluating their methods and changing their strategies as they continue to help Liberian children and families.

Another thing we discussed is the ridiculous food situation in Liberia. It's a country that has tons of available farm land which is hardly being used. And yet it's a country that still imports rice. There is a lot of dependency in Liberia. The US has been giving a lot of help after the second civil war in Liberia (1999-2003), but things now need to change more towards development instead of constant relief. I have shared on social media why I was so angry with the abrupt, unplanned, uncharitable way that the USA shut down USAID. This caused and will cause tremendous damage. But on the other hand, cutting off unhealthy aid may finally shake some countries into thinking about better development plans.

Graduations in Africa are always exciting with a lot of cheering and dancing.

They gifted us with traditional Liberian attire:

Here is a testimony to share. Some of the people we trained from Christian Aid went out and taught others. Emmanuel was one of the people they trained. In Chauncey's words:

Emmanuel Somah lives in Peace Island Community, Monrovia Liberia. Peace Island is a rocky hillside crowded with houses overlooking a swamp. It is a community facing some severe challenges like no network, poor water, and few roads. But despite these challenges Emmanuel is bringing change to his community.

After receiving the teaching from Lesson 7 - Asset Based Community Development, Emmanuel went home and got to work. He started right in his house. With his prior teaching knowledge, he started a school right in his house! He looks for children that are unable to go to school in his community and teaches what he is able. He calls their school Asset Based Child Development.

But he didn’t stop there! He realized their community is dirty so he and his children got busy and started cleaning up trash! The gutter that had been clogged with trash was opened so water could flow again. And all while the community watched and speculated. Some said he is receiving money from the white people to let him work but others said no, Emmanuel is working for the good of all of us, what can we do?

So these community members went together and bought brooms for the cleaning project, and others loaned rakes or other tools. Now their next vision is to attack the public toilets with soap and bacteria cleaner! Let’s pray for Emmanuel as he still has many challenges to face in his community. Let’s pray that others will catch the vision and realize that change starts with me. And may each of us challenge ourselves with the question “What can I do?”

__________________________________________________________________________________

 Ethiopia HWHIA

Jonny and I traveled to Ethiopia in November 2024, to do a training hosted by the Bible League, but with people from many different organizations and churches. Unfortunately I got really sick while there, probably with food poisoning, so Jonny had to lead a couple of the days completely without me. I get sick quite often on my travels unfortunately.

Due to a computer glitch I lost all of my notes about the interesting discussions from this training, so I will just share some photos. Here are some clips of people singing. It sounds very different from the songs in Uganda.

The training was at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology where I got to spend time with my friend Nathaniel Veltman who teaches there.

They eat a traditional dish that is raw ground beef. I did not eat that one! Yet somehow I still got sick.

Addis Ababa is very cold at times (at least compared to Soroti). I wore a suit every day.

The Ethiopian church context is very interesting. The church is ancient in Ethiopia. It's had Christians for thousands of years, something which makes most African Christians proud. But today there is a division between evangelical churches and the historic Ethiopian Orthodox churches in Ethiopia. From what people told me, it sounds like basically everyone in the country by default is part of the Orthodox church in the sense that it's so embedded into every aspect of society and part of the mainstream culture.

The evangelicals believe this has led to a lot of ritual, traditionalism, and a lot of people who aren't actually in relationship with Jesus but going to church every Sunday because you need to in order to get married, have burials etc. It's intimately enmeshed into the social fabric of society. Some people told me that the Orthodox churches don't teach people how to read the Bible, or evangelize, or how to personally pray. Other evangelicals said that the Orthodox churches get really uncomfortable if you talk about Jesus too much instead of focusing on his mother Mary. I don't know the reality as I didn't get to visit any Orthodox churches. Of course there are two sides to every story. Someone else told me that his church leaders secretly train church leaders from Orthodox churches who are hungry for good biblical teaching. I did a podcast interview of a pastor who talked at one point about doing evangelism among communities of people belonging to Orthodox churches. That resulted in me getting criticism from someone who found it offensive that I would post such an interview, since they have good Orthodox Christian friends. It's certainly a complicated situation. As an outsider, I don't know what to think. I only know what people have told me.

Around the Homestead

By Anthony:

First an update on Sara's painting around the yard:

This one isn't finished yet:

Second, an update on my fish pond. It's hard when I only do a post like this twice a year. So much has changed. But here are some highlights.

We tried to get the ducks used to the pond, but they wouldn't go in voluntarily, so we caught every duck with some running around and threw them into the pond. They were pleasantly surprised and really liked it! But then they were too stupid to find the ramp to get out on their own, so I had to catch each one with our fishing net which took a while. We think now that we are in the rainy season, the pond will fill up nicely, and they might be more willing to go in when the water level is higher and it's easier for them to get in and out.

Here is an already old video of the fish feeding. You can just catch one of the catfish in the video. Nowadays the catfish lurk on the bottom and I never see them unless I happen to catch one. They have grown quite large.

Here is my friend Federico catching a catfish.

Some of the tilapia are much smaller than others. Some are decent size. They have already begun reproducing, so we have very small fish in the pond as well.

We have eaten fish a few times so far. We had deep fried whole tilapia for Sara's birthday.

I have to say it's pretty great being able to fish so easily. I'm becoming addicted. If I get tired of being inside doing computer work, I can do some quick fishing for 30 minutes, and then come back in. It's so fun. One challenge is that it turns out the fish are really difficult to catch. I think this is because they have been getting overfed on the pellets we give them. So they don't always want to eat other things. But we are cutting back their rations a bit. They also eat the plants in the pond and the insects, of which there are many.

We also get uninvited visitors to our home like this edible rat (we didn't eat this one - our dog Caleb killed it - but we have eaten it before), a scorpion, and an Egyptian cobra that our night guard killed. Thankfully the dogs didn't see the snake or they might have attacked it and been bitten. (Sara says - "But just so you know, this is the first scorpion we have seen in Uganda and the first venomous snake we have ever had in our yard after 10 years living in Uganda.")  Even while I'm typing this post, Sara just took away a dead bat from one of the dogs. Never a dull moment!

Here is a dead snake that Sara found jogging on the road. This is a puff adder. 

Some critters that we do like include frogs and lizards, like this agama lizard that I caught. And we still have some chameleons.

And we like our pigeons:

But we like our dogs best. And we got a new puppy, Finn! Caleb is getting really old (he is 11) and we wanted to get a puppy while Caleb is still alive. We are busy trying to train him. Unfortunately he was really scared of people when we got him, and it's taken weeks before he would be okay being petted, or not run away from us. But he is now warming up to us. He loved the other dogs right away and he constantly pesters Caleb and Beorn to play with him.

Our house functions also as a warehouse for all kinds of farm equipment, and for books. We just got another great gift of books from Christian Book. They temporarily get stored in our house while I get in touch with various bishops to come pick up loads to give to their church leaders. This is just after unloading the vehicle.

I miss playing drums. I played quints (tenors) in high school marching band. So I've been dreaming for many years now about how to create a set of quints out of local African drums. And I finally got around to it with the help of a drum-maker and a carpenter in Soroti and with Sara's sewing skills.

We had lots of visitors over Christmas time. At one point we had 3 different people staying here in the guestroom and two different makeshift rooms.

Jilanne is a missionary in Kampala, also with Resonate Global Mission as a partner missionary. She stayed with us for a couple weeks and she and Sara painted this world map.

Here are pictures of "white ants" (flying termites coming out to mate), that Sara got on her jog.

Another big update: We got solar installed! We are not completely off grid, but it's a huge change. Putting it in was tricky but no one got hurt.

The solar is a game changer for us. It means - No more dropping from zoom meetings from random power outages, no more shaving with a flashlight in the dark, no more security lights being off around the house, no more electronics getting destroyed with inconsistent power from the grid, no more ice cream melting and refreezing many times, no more 90+ degree nights in our bedroom with the fan suddenly turning off, and we can actually talk on the phone any time (our network is so weak here, that we have to use a powered booster to talk on the phone in our house). And much more besides.

Not from the homestead but last, here are some photos from our travels, including some from staying on the Nile River.

A day care of nightmares: