Field agent Lama Barry begins a day of planting in the village of Sirmandiala Boye. Working together, a team of four farmers was able to plant a half-hectare field over the course of a morning. The traditional method of planting in Tambacounda uses a “semoir”, or planting machine, which digs a trench in the ground where seeds are placed. The semoir is pulled by a horse or a donkey, and consists of a barrel that contains seeds and a disc that turns as the machine rolls forward, dispensing one seed every few steps. The distance between the seeds depends on the size of the disc used.
The planting machine actually serves various purposes during the planting process. It is used to plough the field (as pictured), as well as to plant the seeds themselves and to add fertilizer. Before the seeds were put in the ground in this plot, the farmer added a little bit of water that was blessed by the village imam to ensure a good planting and harvest season.
This year, myAgro farmers in Tambacounda were trained on different methods of planting – both by hand and by planting machine. Farmers who wished to plant by machine were trained on several tweaks to the traditional planting method that can help to increase their yields. For example, many farmers often plough the field right before planting, add seeds, and then broadcast fertilizer across the whole field. Instead, myAgro agents trained farmers to first use their semoir to dig a deep trench in which they add a small amount of fertilizer. After covering the trench with a bit of earth, the farmer does a second pass with the semoir along the same trench in order to add seeds. This way, the fertilizer is ideally placed in order to favour the growth of the seeds when they begin to germinate, instead of being broadcast – which allows weeds to grow more easily.
Farmers who wished to plant by hand were trained on the use of a “planting string”, which is marked to indicate how far apart the seeds should be placed in the ground. This means that farmers place seeds directly into pockets at evenly spaced intervals. This saves them from competing for nutrients, which can occur when two plants are growing too close together. It also saves the seeds from possible breakage that can be sustained when seeds are placed in the barrel of the machine.
myAgro will continue to work with farmers in Tambacounda to develop innovative agricultural practices to help increase harvests and incomes!
