Sprouting mixed grains
In some villages of Tamil Nadu, India, people in traditional communities prepare a nutritious snack for children and adults by sprouting grains. Farmers often take these snacks with them to the field in the morning. Use a mixture of pearl millet, finger millet, and rice grains – preferably traditional varieties. For five people you will need about two handfuls of clean pearl millet seeds with the outer coat removed, a handful of finger millet grains, and a handful of raw rice. In the morning, mix all of these together and put them in a container to soak. In the evening, drain off the excess water. Then wrap the seeds in a cotton cloth and hang the cloth inside a pot. By the next morning the millet seeds will have sprouted. The rice seeds will be fat and bulging. This combination of grains is tasty and nutritious. The sprouted grains are also easy to digest.
P Vivekanandan, India From DCFRN Package 44, Script 4
Use of avocados
In our area of Ndrele in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, our production of avocados is greater than we can consume and sell locally. I have heard that oil can be extracted from avocados, and also that soap can be made from them. Can anyone provide ideas and information on this subject?
Adubang’o Ali, Socopa/Ndrele, PO Box 116, Paidha-West-Nile, Uganda.
Keeping ants away
At this time of year the army ants are on the march and if you get in their way you will get some painful bites. Out in the villages they can march right through people’s huts in the night and be a terrible nuisance. We run three agricultural centres and people are asking for ant-killer. We have provided a few bottles of powder for sale but it is a bit expensive. I am wondering if there is any other way to deter these ants. Can any Footsteps readers share suggestions on how to deal with these pests?
Brendan Meghen, Kalabo, Zambia.
COMMENT: Army ants can be a painful nuisance, but they are also very good ‘cleaners’. When they have moved through a hut or kitchen they will have killed and eaten all the insects and their eggs, especially the cockroaches. They leave it free of dirt and disease carrying pests. When I was in Zambia I used to encourage the ants to scavenge through my home. They even kept the white ants (termites) under control. When we lost our army ants, the termites began to increase and destroyed many things. Be careful about upsetting the balance of nature by attacking them with ant killer!
SANDRA MICHIE, EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Health unions
The main reason for the death of people in our villages is lack of money to pay for healthcare, even though there are health centres and hospitals. In 1995 health unions (Mutuelles de Santé) were begun in Nikki, bringing together farmers and health staff. The health unions help people to face together the problem of illness by improving the health of members and helping people to plan for possible illness in the future. They raise funds from entrance fees and annual subscriptions collected from the member families.
The health unions are small groups – there may be several groups or just one in each village. There are also district unions and a regional association, which co-ordinate all the health unions. In the last year over 10,000 members registered in health unions. Members receive a membership card which gives their family the right to one year’s free healthcare for childbirth, treatment of small wounds, snake bites, malaria, diarrhoea, vomiting and surgery. Minor illnesses and the cost of doctors’ consultations are not included in the free treatment.
If readers would like further information about how the health unions operate, please write to: CIDR, BP 584, Parakou, Borgou, Benin. Fax: +229 61 22 68.
ILLIASSOU Sabi Dera, CSSP/NIKKI, Borgou-Benin, BP 10, Nikki, Benin.
Empowering women
Our organisation has just set up a programme aiming to empower women. With the little funding we had available we helped two women begin an agricultural project. Our objective is for them to take full responsibility for their activities. Later we hope to increase the size of their field, enrich it with other crops and increase the number of people farming it.
We have based this work on the teaching in Pas à Pas 32 on food security and on 1 Thessalonians 4:11 where St Paul encourages us to get on with our own business and work with our hands. We hope that by the grace of God our activities will contribute a lot to food security at family, community and even national levels. We would like to hear from organisations doing similar work
K D Bubuto AGBOVOR, Conseil Culturel d’Education et de la Santé (CCES/BRT), BP 20693, Lomé, Togo.
Smoking fish
Women in remote areas of Cameroon have difficulty selling fresh fish locally. CODASC (the department for supporting development in the Diocese of M’Balmayo, central Cameroon) has suggested this method of preserving fish by smoking, to enable fish to be transported to markets for sale or kept until required for eating.
- Build a hearth out of stones or bricks in either a round or square shape leaving a gap for the fuel. Gather firewood and either banana leaves or skins.
- Make a tray or several trays from wire mesh
- Clean and gut the fish and open them out. Wash well in clean water and allow to dry.
- Light the fire. When it is burning well, cover with banana leaves or skins to prevent it burning too fiercely.
- Place the fish on the wire mesh and place on the hearth. You can build several layers of wire mesh by adding more bricks or stones. Cover the top layer of fish with a layer of banana leaves or old newspaper.
- Leave the fish to smoke for a day. Eat it or sell it the following day.
You can also build smokers for fish from old, clean oil drums or mud walls.
Eduoard M B Ngono, CODASC, BP 320, M’Balmayo, Cameroon.
Poultry feed
I have been keeping layer and broiler chickens for nearly ten years now, and practise good management. My problem is that if I don’t use commercial layers’ mash, I get lower production and poor quality eggs. What is the secret of this commercial layers’ feed? The price of buying this feed keeps increasing and recently I have had to reduce the number of laying hens from 200 to 50. I plan to return to Mozambique at the end of this year and know that although there are no feed factories, the land is fertile and can grow all kinds of grains.
Could any readers help me with ideas for producing my own poultry feeds?
Victor Magurungwa, PO Box 24, Chimanimani, Zimbabwe.
EDITOR: In Kenya we recommended this simple recipe for layers, using local ingredients that were easily available. Use an empty tin can as a measure.
- 1 tin maize or sorghum (or other local grains)
- 1/2 tin termites or dried fish (for protein)
- 1/2 tin chopped dark green leaves (for vitamins)
Mix and grind small. If you cannot trap enough termites and have no dried fish, then use some other form of cheap protein such as soya beans, groundnuts, snails, worms, etc. However, it is important to keep to the same ingredients. Each time the mix is changed, egg laying will drop for a few days.