Cropping guides now cover 7 crops

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by Duncan Sones

30 May 2017:Three new ISFM system cropping guides have been produced by CABI-ASHC, covering sweetpotato, groundnut and maize-legumes. This brings the total of guides available to download to 7. These guides are FREE to download now – follow the links on the table below.

Talking of the sweetpotato guide, Edward Carey, from the International Potato Centre, said: “We are happy to have had the opportunity to contribute to this CABI-ASHC Cropping Guide. The broad introduction to sweetpotato production and utilization should be useful to literate farmers, extensionists, NGO workers and students. It is expected that the guide will help contribute to broad improvement of sustainable cropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa.”

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James Watati explains: “The suite of seven ISFM cropping guides are designed to give detailed information about the soil fertility issues relating to specific crops. They are an invaluable source of information to support the producton of farmer-friendly development communications materials or to develop training materials for intermediaries.

We have been experimenting with different format for the guides. The feedback we got from extension agents was that they did not want them to be too large and so a format of 2/3rd A4 was developed. We know however that downloading and printing colour guides is expensive, in terms of ink cartridges, therefore we also produced easy to photocopy, A4, black and white versions of the guides.”

Black and white easy-to-copy versions of the three new guides will be available shortly. If you want to be the first to know when they are ready sign up to the ASHC_soilhealth Twitter account.

A summary of all of the available guide

Cropping system/subject	English	Portuguese	French
1 ISFM handbook	English colour (full & sections) .	Portuguese colour	French colour
2 Cassava	English colour (H&L) English B&W (H&L)	Portugueses colour (H&L) Portuguese B&W (H&L)	French colour (H&L) French B&W (H&L)
3 Coffee Banana	English colour (H&L) English B&W (H&L)	Portuguese colour (H&L) Portuguese B&W (H&L)	French colour (H&L) French B&W (H&L)
4 Groundnut	English (H&L) New in May 2017 English B&W under development	Not available for this topic Artwork can be made available for translations to be made
5 Maize:Legumes	English (H&L) New in May 2017 English B&W under development	Not available for this topic Artwork can be made available for translations to be made
6 Rice	English colour (H&L) English B&W (H&L)	Portuguese colour (H&L) Portuguese B&W (H&L)	French (H&L) French B&W (H&L)
7 Sorghum & millet	English colour (H&L) English B&W (H&L)	Portuguese colour (H&L) Under development
8 Sweetpotato	English colour (H&L) New in May 2017 English B&W under development	Not available for this topic Artwork can be made available for translations to be made

H= High resolution; L= Low resolutions B&W = black and white

Priority countries for phase 1 of ASHC included Mozambique and Mali, and so translation into Portuguese and French was a requirement. As we move to phase 2 we are producing cropping guides in English only. Anyone interested in producing translations of any of the systems cropping guides into other languages should contact James Watiti, so that we can make artwork available.

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