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Duncan Sones

Africa Soil Health Consortium: The story so far

Dannie Romney, Africa Soil Health Consortium project executive, took an opportunity to review the progress of the Africa Soil Health Consortium (ASHC) as it reaches the half way point in the current Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant programme. She shares the teams views on the achievements, lessons and challenges from the past two years. ASHC is […]

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Cassava resources & making posters that work

Material matters is a bi-monthly feature which reviews materials that can be freely downloaded from the ASHC website. This month we are reviewing the cassava resources you might find useful. We are also featuring some poster formats to coincide with the recent publication of the Media Guide: Making farmer-friendly posters and the template to help you make your […]

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Sharing soil health approaches July 2017

Welcome e-newsletter-3. This a good opportunity to catch up on anything you may have missed in the past few months. This month we are sharing new tools that can help anyone to design farmer-friendly printed information in different formats. Four templates can now be downloaded for the creation of do-it-yourself promotional material. The templates are for […]

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ASHC putting three more countries on its map

5 August 2017: The ASHC team is looking ahead to the new campaigns to support partner projects in East and West Africa… Soybean, cassava and bananas are all in the mix.  Overview The ASHC  funding agreement requires that the majority of the work has to be conducted in one or more of  five priority countries Ghana and Nigeria […]

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Movies & SMS inform soy farmers in N Ghana

21 July 2017: Duncan Sones, one of the communications specialists on the ASHC team reflects on the recent soybean campaign in Northern Ghana. This campaign has been delivered by the Africa Soil Health Consortium and its partners with support from the Gender and Legumes Alliance project.  The rains have arrived in Northern Ghana, and our […]

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North: South divide in Tanzania soybean training

Updated 20 July 2017 SILT The delay in the rains in many parts of Tanzania during the soybean planting season meant that around half of the demo plots were planted up to 6 weeks later than normal. Usually  farming season in the Southern Highlands starts from November/December  but this year it was as late as January. This was […]

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Material matters… 25 free soil health and cropping manuals to download

Material matters is a bi-monthly feature which reviews materials that can be freely downloaded from the ASHC website. This month we are reviewing the manuals that we have been developed by ASHC and its partners.  There is a wealth of information here. The handbook for ISFM outlines the principles of the approach – giving details of […]

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SMS warned farmers of late rain & stalk borer

13 July 2017: How ICT build farmer resilience through agricultural technologies… A CABI-led SMS campaign has been commended for its ability to provide farmers with timely information to enhance farmer resilience to challenges caused by climate change and pests and diseases. The campaign is carried out in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania as part of the UPTAKE project. The […]

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1.75 million SMSs push UPTAKE of new technologies

10 July 2017: Stephanie Gakuo, UPTAKE project manager reflects on the progress and emerging lessons from the project and the recent SMS campaigns. The full name of the UPTAKE project is Upscaling Agricultural Technologies through Knowledge and Extension. The agricultural technologies include a combination of the use of inputs that include  seed, fertilizer and pest and disease control technologies, along with the promotion […]

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SMS campaign increases maize seed sales by 20-90%

5 July 2017: Seed companies in Mbeya, Tanzania,  have reported increased sales ranging from 20-90% following an UPTAKE campaign that promoted the use of improved maize seed varieties last season. The UPTAKE project has been using SMS technology to promote the use of improved seed varieties to 40,000 farmers in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands, as part […]

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