Day 10: Sustainable Agriculture

Each year, thousands of people benefit from UMCOR’s Sustainable Agriculture & Development (UMCOR-SA&D) program, either directly through UMCOR training or through word of mouth. Through this program, UMCOR works to minimize dependency, maximize potential, and build community.

UMCOR-SA&D minimizes the dependency that farmers, local communities, or institutions may have on external support for technical, financial, and human resources. The heart of the SA&D program is the training of farmers and community-based extension workers. These field-based trainings are centered on the farmer and on the community. They help raise awareness and use of local resources and assets to ensure participant ownership for sustainable success.

UMCOR-SA&D maximizes potential through training that is more useful and valuable in the long term than providing money and materials. “Knowledge is power” is the underlying concept for the UMCOR-SA&D philosophy. Knowledge cannot be destroyed by war, stolen, or otherwise separated from a person. Should livelihoods be disrupted for reasons of war and natural disasters, people will have the UMCOR-acquired knowledge to restart their lives.

UMCOR-SA&D builds community by using farm-based peer training and farmer-to-farmer approaches to skill sharing and learning, which provides hands-on, practical exercises. “Master Farmers,” who have experience in specific production technologies, are often engaged as experts to train other farmers participating in field schools. All agricultural activities including training, research, and extension actually occur in farmers’ fields rather than in an institution. The farmers become agents of transformation for their own lives, their families, and their communities.

UMCOR-SA&D supports economic and social development in rural communities through agricultural production and other related activities, such as beekeeping, livestock, and nutrition improvement through soy and Moringa production. The program focuses on projects that are economically and environmentally sustainable and appropriate for subsistent farmers.

Sustainable Agriculture & Development, UMCOR Advance #982188
Learn more at http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/work/hunger/sad

To make an additional donation to this project, click here

Quick Facts

• Currently UMCOR SA&D currently conducts trainings in four countries: Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, DR Congo and have provided support in Nigeria, Mozambique and Senegal in the past. We are working now to provide more trainings in DR Congo and Nigeria.
• SA&D currently offers farmer to farmer trainings in Integrated Crop and Pest Management (ICPM), Nutrition using soy and Moringa, beekeeping, agroforestry, small livestock, and group microcredit.
• Each year, approximately two thousand farmers are directly trained in at least one UMCOR SA&D component.
• The SA&D model is deliberate in its emphasis on minimizing the dependency of farmers, local communities and institutions on itself or other sources of external support for technical, financial and human resources. This is a very important feature of this model.

Volunteer Information: For more information on how to volunteer, please contact your regional jurisdictional coordinator.

North Central: Lorna Jost
928 4th Street, Office #2, Brookings, SD 57006
Tel: 605-692-3390;

Northeastern: Gregory Forrester
32 North Church Street, Cortland, NY 13045
Tel: 607-756-7799;

South Central: Debbie Vest
15120 Sunningdale Street, Austin TX, 78717
Tel: 913-568-8826;

Southeastern: Paulette West
315 W. Ponce de Leon Ave, Suite 750, Decatur, GA 30030
Tel: 404-377-7424;

Western: Heather Wilson
11707 Terra Bella, Lakeview Terrace, CA 91342
Tel: 818-333-6730;