Learning organic farming methods
When Oxfam learnt about the fates of these farmers they decided to help them by teaching them how to farm their land on a small budget without chemical fertilisers or pesticides. They were going to help the people to survive and become independent, but they had to show that they could grow as much cotton without chemicals.
| One of the worms that are being used instead of fertilisers. |
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Using worms instead of chemicals
We visited a few of the farms that Oxfam had already helped and we saw what they were using instead of chemicals. Instead of fertiliser they had a big brick store filled with cow manure and other organic matter (left-overs like peelings and things). Then they pay the equivalent of less than a pound for a bag of worms. They put these worms into the mixture and they live in it. The worms thrive because it is exactly the kind of place that they like to live in, so they reproduce and they eat all of the mixture. They put oxygen into the mixture and somehow turn it from a liquidy gooey mess into stuff that looks like soil. The farmers then spread this on the fields and it acts as compost. It is actually a better fertiliser than the chemical one and it hardly costs anything – just a bag of worms! So you see all this time they had been emptying their pockets for this chemical fertiliser there was a better and much cheaper one right under their noses.
It’s all a matter of being taught about what they can do and giving them the choices and confidence to do it.
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