A few farming hints

Livestock and beekeepingSoil health

Backgrounder

Save and edit this resource as a Word document.

A. Snails as fish feed and fertilizer

Lung Chieng is a farmer in northeastern Thailand. He has fishponds on his farm and grows fruit trees on the bunds that separate the ponds. Many snails live beside the ponds in the moist areas under the fruit trees. Lung Chieng collects these snails to feed to his fish. He puts them in a bag or sack and pounds them with a stick to break them into pieces. Then he lowers the crushed snails into the pond in a weighted, shallow basket or net. The hungry fish suck the meat out of the shells, leaving the shells behind. When the fish have eaten all of the snail meat, he pulls the basket or net out of the water. He uses the remaining shells for calcium fertilizer under his fruit trees.

B. Powdered cattle dung makes excellent fertilizer

by Koukou Felix Aloudjo, Togo

If you own one or more cows, you can use the manure from these animals on your crops, as we do in our region. Here is how we do it. Collect the manure off the ground and dry it. When it is very dry, reduce it into powder by using a mortar and pestle. You will obtain a good quantity of powder or “manure flour,” which you should then store in sacks in a dry place. Three weeks after your crops, such as maize, sorghum, and cotton, start to sprout, apply the powder at the base of the plants. Use a closed fistful for each plant. The result is very effective! It could be even more effective if you mix this substance with urea before applying it to the plants.

C. Papaya seeds for deworming poultry and livestock

by G. Arthur Kaye, Ghana

Here is a homemade medicine that’s used in Ghana against certain internal worms in livestock and poultry. To make it, cut open a fully ripe papaya and scrape out the seeds. Soak them in water to remove the soft covering around the seeds. Strain and dry them in the sun until they are very dry. Grind the dried seeds into powder and keep them in an airtight container. A teaspoon of this papaya seed powder in one gallon (four litres) of water will give protection against roundworms and other worms in livestock and poultry.