Farming in Fatick is a far cry from the farming that goes on at Holloman Farm in Alabama. There are no big tractors to drive through the fields to plow, plant, and harvest the crops. Instead, the plowing is done with a hand plow pulled by a horse or donkey. Also, there are only two seasons here in Senegal: wet and dry. During the wet season (July through October), when there are rains, everything is green and growing.
However, during the dry season, most of the farms are left for the animals to graze over until it is time to plant again.
If the farmers had a way of getting water to their fields, they could grow crops three or four times a year. There is one farmer in Fatick who spends his day (before the sun comes up until after the sun goes down) on his farm and waters his crops by hand. As a result, he is growing crops such as lettuce right now during the dry season.
Travis has been working on an idea that would make it possible for the farmers to get water to their crops. It involves a small battery that the women could carry from their homes to their fields each day after charging it with a small solar panel. The battery would be used to run a small pump that would pump water from a well through a hose so they could water their crops. Travis took me out to a farm so he could demonstrate the process. He is hoping to try this out on the field at the top of this blog. Once he gets everything worked out, we are hoping to be able to expand this project through the help of volunteers partnering with us. It will be a great way to open the door for us to plant seeds of the gospel to these farmers.
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