COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Dear Peter,

Due to cereal crops failure, am now in option to adopt other farming systems, implement by hand irrigation, at least to make use of the lake water. I am a Farm Technologist and Organizer looking to get support to help my community farmers group to become self reliant in our food supply. I inquire what 'supporting paperwork' I should be preparing so that one might know how Donation could help us.

Kindly let me know what one would like to know about us group project and how that group might use Donations.

I have planned to organize training seminar to the local community farmers to have knowledge and actual experience on organic farming system.

Activities undertaken is to help obtain the organic farming management skills needed with actual aim to improve on our farming activities for food production, to understand ecosystems in organic farming and influence of components of one another within a farm including elements such as water retention, soil fertility management, plants and animals working together in support to each other for survival naturally.

This is to give direct respond to the need of my community for alternative environmentally, friendly farming practices and pest natural control.

The training is in mandate to practical /adoptive organic farming on crops and animals, natural pests controls that are effective, selective, non polluting and affordable to conservation and utilization to our small farmed lands with rich biodiversity. The training is to focus on sustainable farming methods as the basis for development, environment as the foundation for socio_economic sustainability.

In overall, the training is of well being of the small scale farmers, addressing the interlinked problems of poverty, poor health, low agricultural productivity and degradation of the soils and environment.The training is to be scientific, cutting edge on organic farming, the holistic nature of it, ecosystem analysis, socioeconomic, and agronomy and weed science. Its also to reflect in many discipline of science technology which touches upon use of synthetic and organic fertilizers; Disadvantages and advantages of these fertilizer applications in the farms.

I'm looking for idea on how to raise funds from well wishers, Charity organizations to facilitate the training and implementation adoptions on organic farming system, for this requires considerable investment of time, money and other resources to reach full potential adaptation. We are an African Community that is suffering from drought. To point out, we have two fundamental aspects to detail with, “the FIX” and “the CURE”. The FIX, is the short term measures that must be implemented immediately to keep the community alive, and CURE is the long term we are to undertake by training the farmers on organic farming.

Our budget is equivalent to $ 1800 to support 85 farmers trainees.

Peter Ongele
Lwimi Suba Farmers Information COORDINATOR.
+254723852447

Peter Burgess to Chris, Philippa, peter show details 1:08 PM (7 hours ago) Dear Peter

Thank you for contacting me. As you know I am very bad at the fund raising aspect of anything ... but maybe I can be helpful in a broader context.

As you know I like what you have been doing, and I think I like what you are trying to do here even more.

You may have noticed that my focus has changed little from the Transparency and Accountability dimension to something that is more positive less negative ... TrueValueMetrics, meaningful metrics for a smart society. But something else has been going on and that is the emergence of a very dynamic cyber-community that is setting the stage for a very much more productive world. Obviously the Arab Awakening is part of this, and the recent emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I was with the #OWS people last week (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) and a friend shot this video. You can see my white hair and my back ... wearing a United We Stand tea-shirt!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XM-pTWcLMo&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

My quick observation about your fund raising idea is that it can easily be viewed as you raising money for you. This is obviously part of the goal, but only important to you, and not very important to a potential donor. I would argue that you need to put this training into a broader context ... a context that has to do with what this will actually do for your community. I believe your initiative could be huge if the training gets translated into better agricultural practices. The knowledge you have as 1 expands exponentially to the 85 trainees and then to some real upgrading of agricultural practice and better food and nutrition for families, and maybe better income for families.

As regards costs that have to be financed ... You need $1,800 to get this started. What do the 85 trainees need to allow them to use the training effectively both as income for themselves and the materials etc that are needed to implement the ideas. Do the farmer families have to buy stuff that they do not have any money for?

As regards benefit ... what are the changes in production that you anticipate, both in terms of quantity and in terms of money prices.

I like to think in terms of community needs. What are the needs of the community in terms of water, food, shelter, security, education, health, entertainment, etc. How much is presently satisfied with local resources? How much will be satisfied with the upgraded productivity?

I think you get the concept.

Back to the new 21st century cyber-community. In this modern world you don't need one friend but one huge network of friends. In my own way this is what the TrueValueMetrics.org website would like to be ... but the reality is that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ are way bigger network platforms. Maybe I could build a bit of dialog about your initiative on the TVM website and start linking this to the various social media platforms. If you think this is a good idea let me know.

It would also be helpful to be able to identify exactly where you are working on a Google Map. Are you close to the Ruma National Park. I had a better idea of your geography some time ago, but cannot immediately locate this old material.

All the best Peter ... give me some little bit more guidance

Peter
@truevaluemetric
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