The North-East Farmers’ Organisation (NEFO) started a composting-activity with support of the CATS-Programme on June 26, 2015. Facilitated by Troy Augustine, Ministry of Agriculture, Land, Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment, and Derek Charles, IICA country representative the session was organised on the farm of Mr Evans Gooding at New Hampshire.
Approximately 30 farmers learned during a hands-on session how to prepare and set up a compost heap. Different materials that are available on most farms had been used for the first compost heap: 1 truck load of Sargassum seaweed, donkey manure, chicken manure, dry and green grass, and cocoa shells had been piled into an approximately 2x4x1m heap.
In the following weeks, NEFO farmers regularly watered the compost heap and turned it every second week to allow the bacterial processes to break down the materials into compost. A series of 5 compost heaps had been built in this way to guarantee the continuous availability of fresh compost to NEFO farmers.
Compost is an ideal material to improve soil fertility and the levels of nutrients available for plants, and to reduce at the same time the need for chemical fertilizers. This is why this practice is promoted within the Ridge-to-Reef-Approach of the CATS-Programme as it offers an adaptation technique to climate change impacts and improves the environmental footprint of agricultural production.