Our New Strategy in Conducting Farmer Trainings

The Zambian-German Agricultural Knowledge and Training Centre (AKTC) recorded a high number of farmer participation in last year’s (2019) trainings. Not only did the centre record high participation rates, but also managed to reach out to all the ten provinces of Zambia in terms of training delivery. All such achievements were made possible through the engagement of two different training approaches.

The first approach was referred to as the ‘combined trainings’ approach. With this method, a maximum of 5 different training topics would be organised to take place in a space of 5 days at the training centre. This meant that farmers attending the combined trainings would be lodged at AKTC’s accommodation facility in order to attend the 5 days trainings. The second approach was the outreach method. The outreach approach enabled the AKTC experts to conduct trainings outside the training centre (mostly in places far away from the project). As a result of these approaches, the project managed to train at least 20 emergent farmers from each of the provinces across the country.

This year (2020), AKTC has adopted a new and different approach of conducting trainings known as a modular training plan, which is obviously also a good way to go. Our modular training plan comes as a full package of all the trainings offered at AKTC which are as listed below.

 

 

  • Introduction to Agricultural Machinery
  • Tractor Operation and Maintenance
  • Boom Sprayer Calibration
  • Planter Calibration
  • Fertiliser Spreader Calibration
  • Soil Management and Fertiliser usage
  • Global Positioning System (GPS) use in Agriculture
  • Vegetable Production
  • Farm Business Simulation (new training topic)
  • Tractor Driving-Introduction (new training topic)
  • Tractor Driving with Implement (new training topic)

These trainings have been divided into two segments. The first segment comprises of six different training topics which are to be conducted in a period of five days. Below is the list of the six training topics that are going to be conducted in the first part of the training package.

AKTC-University of Hohenheim Ph.D. Candidate Godfrey Omulo explains his work under the CAFM Project to Mpongwe farmers.

  • Introduction to Agricultural Machinery
  • Planter Calibration
  • Boom Sprayer Calibration
  • Tractor Operation and Maintenance
  • Tractor Driving-Introduction
  • GPS use in Agriculture

On the other hand, the second set of trainings will comprise of five training topics. These too will be conducted in a period of five days. The second segment trainings shall include:

  • Soil Management and Fertiliser usage
  • Fertiliser Spreader Calibration
  • Tractor Driving with Implement
  • Vegetable Production
  • Farming as a Business

The idea behind this new approach is to offer the whole package of AKTC training topics holistically to an individual farmer. This entails that an individual farmer will be able to undergo and gain knowledge and skills in all the listed trainings above. In order to successfully achieve this plan, three different groups of emergent farmers are going to be identified from any of the ten provinces in Zambia. Each group of 20 participants will have to attend the trainings in two separate weeks.

The first group of 21 emergent farmers from Mpongwe district (Copperbelt province) have so far attended the first segment of our modular trainings listed above.

Out of this total number of trainees, 20 were tractor owners while one trainee, i.e. the field officer working in the area, did not own a tractor but hires the services from the farmers operating in his area. The training took place for a period of five days and all trainees were being accommodated at the AKTC accommodation facility. This particular group of farmers was a new group to participate in AKTC’s training programme ever before. The group is further scheduled to come back and attend the other trainings in the second segment (i.e. once everything pertaining the current COVID-19 pandemic is settled).                               AKTC Agricultural Machinery expert Martin Sikanyika with Mpongwe farmers during    

Tractor Operation and Maintenance Training

With this new approach, we hope that the Zambian emergent farmers will gain as much knowledge and skills as possible in a holistic manner.  We further wish that the knowledge gained out of these trainings will enable the farmers to develop their farm related skills and eventually better their ways of living. It is therefore the project’s expectation that this approach will yield positive results and that farmers will implement each and every knowledge gained through this combination of agricultural related topics.