Greetings!

    | August 23, 2010

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    We’d like to extend a warm welcome to our new subscribers for this week:
    Richard Shengang, from Ocean city radio Kumba, in Cameroon; Egwel Gilbert, from Kubere Information Center, in Uganda; Joseph Akiiso, from Etop Radio, in Uganda; Shema Clement, from Farm Radio –Malawi/FVR, in Malawi; Nkrumah Yaw, from AFRRI, in Ghana; Steven Kamponda, from AFRRI, in Malawi; André Kameni from Cameroon; Mamadou Samassekou, from Radio Tabital PULAAKU, in Mali; Oumou Coulibaly, from Radio Fanaka, in Mali; Foly Akoussan, from FIDAfrique, in Senegal; Abou Gaye, from Lewlewal group, in Senegal and Emery Patrice Kipoupa Mandilou, from DRTV, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

    This week we present the first of our specially commissioned news stories on soil health. These stories complement the latest script package, Package 91, which is now available online. Over the next few weeks, the stories will cover a range of topics related to soil conservation and fertility. They highlight farmers’ voices, experiences and opinions. We’d like to say a special thank you to The McLean Foundation for supporting the soil health package of scripts and news stories.  In the first story, farmers from Malawi talk about how they learned to feed the soil with organic manure. 

    In other news this week, we pass on a warning from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) about an outbreak of locusts in Madagascar. FAO is working to control the locusts before they swarm, and to prevent a serious plague. Farmers can assist by checking for locusts, and informing the relevant authorities of what they find.

    Human urine is not often a topic of conversation. But this week we hear from farmers in Rwanda who have used it to improve their tomato crops. Human urine is usually disposed of as waste.  But it is free and readily available, so it is a resource which, when used carefully, can be of great benefit to farmers. Maybe we should talk about it more often!

    Don’t forget to scroll down to the Action section this week where you can read an excerpt from an interview with Bartholomew Sullivan. Bart is the regional ICT officer for Farm Radio International’s AFRRI project. He has been looking at ways to increase audience participation in radio. In the interview, he talks about AFRRI’s experiences with the Freedom Fone in Ghana and Tanzania.       

    Happy reading!

    -The Farm Radio Weekly Team