In partnership with Sustainable Growers Rwanda and CBI in The Netherlands we coordinated a training series across four regions of Rwanda, aiming to encompass the majority of the country. These sessions were designed to instruct young extension workers from Sustainable Growers. Following a week of training, we created a series of educational videos, serving as valuable resources for Rwandan coffee farmers regarding the production of organic inputs. The female trainers from Sustainable Growers managed to reach over four thousand farmers in just the first year.

Check out this YouTube channel here for see the video content!

Last 3rd and 4th October 2020 Italian NGO Deafal and Rockinsoils organized the second edition of the applied soil microbiology course. The course combined theory and practice, building up from the basics of soil microbiology giving sets of tools to assess soil condition, humus and biology. The workshop on microscopy was especially interesting as allowed participants to identify different elements that play a role in the soil fertility such as minerals, biodiversity and organic matter in different stages of degradation.

Participants are now able to reproduce several types of soil beneficial microbes and to apply them accordingly to specific farm processes.

A film crew from Bosco di Ogigia filmed us this time. Have a look here

Photos by Filippo Bellantoni

Thanks to Deafal for making this course possible.

Next February, I meet again with my friends of Deafal in Italy. Last time was in 2011. This time we organize a practical course in microbiology applied to agriculture.

In this course we will see how the microbiology works, how to evaluate it using different practical tools, from rice traps to microscopy.

Participants will learn how to reproduce the main functional groups of soil microbes sourced from local environment and use them to improve farm processes for the soil, the plants and the animals.

This course will be given in Spanish or English simultaneously translated to Italian. More info