Biohumus packs waiting for market!

Hosting guests from regional youth forum

CBM%20workshop%20Day%202%20Nalbandyan.pdf

Californian worms wintering

Quarter 3 Narrative Report TAMTF Vermiculture project

(Vermiculture farming and biohumus production at rural youth club in Nalbandyan village in Armenia – Development Principles NGO)

Reporting period: October-December, 2007

Overall Progress
In October the works were done to prepare the new territory fro vermiculture farm (please refer to previous report) and transfer of remained worm beds there.
First two rows were processed and around 650 kg of biohumus was received (around 13 bags). The following activities were conducted:

· the nearby territory was cleaned from weeds to prepare for tree-planting in future.
· the floor was covered with concrete.
· the compost with worms was placed on the concrete, preliminary covered with some layer of hay. It is expected that from this amount of compost around 7-8 metric tons of biohumus will be received already this spring.
· from already produced 650 kg of biohumus around 200 kg will be used for planting the greens and herbs using small pots. The grown greens and herbs will be marketed in the local market and in Yerevan’s supermarkets. Overall, 500 pots with greens were prepared and placed in small hand-made green-houses to prevent the freezing. The harvest is planned to yield in spring for market.
· in November the beds with worms were covered with thick layer of hay, since the temperature was lowering, while in December the hay layer was made larger up to 50 sm in height.
· the new compost is being prepared now (around 10 metric tons), in May the worms will be placed onto new compost as nutritional substrate.
· Regular training sessions are held to the children engaged in rural youth club.
· The youth group made an Information, Education and Communication campaign to bring local public to the understanding of importance of composting and using worms for biohumus production to promote organic agriculture in the region.
· The training materials for Vermiculture and Biohumus production have been developed and are used widely within the community.

Problems Encountered
The following challenge has been reported:
Realization of produced biohumus:
Usually rural inhabitants in Armenia were using dried manure for their fields, as well as for fuel in their remote stoves. The concept of vermicultuer and biohumus application for agricultural production is relatively new for Armenia and the region. Therefore special efforts were made to orientate the general public in this issue.

The youth club children together with their adult leaders conducted an IEC campaign to promote composting and using biohumus for agriculture. Special presentation was made at the village council. As a result, many villagers expressed their willingness to buy biohumus for plant production. However, the problem is that people cannot pay for biohumus now, they are going to buy it in Spring, therefore the biohumus sales are postponed for Spring.

Another feature of potential customers is that they want to borrow biohumus, and pay only after the harvest. This is usual problem for all farmers and rural peasants in Armenia and the region – lack of cash in hand for agroinputs procurement and early spring field work (cash for diesel, rent of machinery, seeds etc.). The rural people possess cash only after harvest an further marketing their produce.

All above facts will serve for redesigning our marketing strategy for biohumus production. Thus, there was identified a group of clients who are asking for worms, not for biohumus, in particular for their fish farms. Therefore, it was decided to divide the available worms beds into two groups and start two scheme of farming: 1. directed towards worms production; directed towards biohumus production. In first case, the nutritional substrate will be limited to promote worms reproduction, in second case – the more manure is composted; the more biohumus volume is produced.

Thus, currently there are three marketing plans for this project income generation:
Biohumus production;
Worms cultivation;
Growing greens for human consumption (fresh greens for the table!)

It is planned to move the project into all above directions to overcome market limitations.

Beneficiaries.

Currently most active group of students consists of 16 schoolchildren.
They participate in training sessions, including peer-to-peer and IEC campaign, as well as directly participated in planting the greens into the pots for later marketing the produced greens in the supermarkets.

Plans for future:
1. Continuation of regular on-site and in-class training sessions to the children.
2. Review of educational materials developed for this project and their publishing with financial assistance of Heifer International Armenia.
3. Training to the trainers of other YES clubs on vermiculture and biohumus production as requested by DP partners in Armenia.
4. Marketing of worms, biohumus and grown greens.

Quarter 2 Narrative Report TAMTF Vermiculture project

(Vermiculture farming and biohumus production at rural youth club in Nalbandyan village in Armenia – Development Principles NGO)

Overall progress
15 students have benefited from the project in last quarter. The trainer and children visited the farm regularly, inspected beddings, added feed to beddings, where biohumus has already produced. But not all of the compost was converted into biohumus. Worms are finished composting when both bedding and food scraps are turned into “castings” /biohumus/. The feed for the worms is compost that has already been rotted.

They also were watering beddings if it was necessary. The beds maintained moisture content of 75 to 80 per cent. Excessive watering has to be avoided as this increases the acidity (lowers the pH) and the worms might die. The children sometimes mixed beddings gingerly, because aeration is very important for worms. The worms were active during this period.

Monitorng visits
On 20th July 2007 - Development Principles NGO experts inspected a farm in Nalbandyan community. The worms were active, the beds maintained a moisture content of 75 to 80 per cent , the temperature was 20-25o C and there was already biohumus produced, but not all of the compost was converted into biohumus. Worms are finished composting when both bedding and food scraps are turned into “castings” /biohumus/
On 26th July the trainer and children visited the farm and inspected beddings. They added feed to bedding, where biohumus has already produced. The feed for the worms is compost that has already been rotted.
On 1st August the children were watering beddings. Watering is essential to ensure that the beds maintain moisture content of 75 to 80 per cent. Excessive watering has to be avoided as this increases the acidity (lowers the pH) and the worms might die. The worms are fed and beds watered during the reporting period.
On 8th August the trainer and children visited the farm, mixed beddings gingerly /carefully/, because aeration is very important for worms
On 15 th August some farmers visited the farm. They would like to engage in Organic farming and are interested in biohumus purchasing
On 28th August the trainer and children inspected beds. The worms were active, the beds maintained a moisture content of 75 to 80 per cent .
On 4th September the trainer and children inspected beds and worms
On 15 th August some farmers visited the farm. They would like to engage in organic farming and are interested in biohumus purchasing.

Special day
On 22th September was Community YES club celebration event dedicated to the launching of first vermiculture project in the village and Armavir marz of Armenia. There were many guests from other directions of YES rural youth club in Nalbandyan village, participants of Regional Youth Forum “Confidence Building Measures”, and guests from the rural communities of Republic of Georgia. Children talked about organic agriculture, vermiculture, their work on the farm. They showed how to separate worms and biohumus. Some of guests received a bag of biohumus as a gift. This day was depicted in the CBM workshop diary (extract is attached to this report).

Problems Encountered
The main problems we have experience so far is unexpected necessity to move vermiculture farm to another location in the same village. The deal was set with the owner of the second farm for 5 years donation (free of charge rent) to the youth club activities, so the work of carefully moving the worms to another farm has been in the process in October already. The necessary labor work is generously taken by community adult leaders.

Income
Marketing plan was discussed and approved between Development Principles NGO and leaders of youth club. There is no income generated so far, but the vigorous sales season will come soon in October, which will be reported in the next Quarter Report.

Plan for future activities
1. Moving worms to new bedding – end of September, 2007.
2. Take care of worms in a new farm premises and maintain the temperature and humidity - October, November, and December.
3. The biohumus will be collected and sieved to remove large particles before bagging. The biohumus grains in the product are less than 0.5 millimeters across. It is odorless and safe to handle. It is rich in hormones, antibiotics and vitamins that produce healthy plant growth.
4. Separation of worms and biohumus / second portion/ - October, 2007.
5. Marketing of biohumus (already negotiated and in the process) – October, November 2007.
6. Regular on-site and in-class training sessions to the children.
7. Publishing of educational materials developed for this project – September-October, 2007.

Story 3

At the vermiculture farm
















It was a hot, sunny day when we arrived at the vermiculture farm in Nalbandyan village. The kids were already waiting for us. Having finished the work for the day they were resting under the trees. The “little farmers” were impatient to show what they accomplished. They managed to collect 30 tons of manure, wash it and mix it with all kinds of food and yard wastes, vegetable and fruit scraps, alum, garden refuse, manure – they knew what to gather to make compost.
The training they received both at school and out in the farm equipped them with knowledge about Californian worms and the fact that those tiny red creatures could be a part of rather complex biological process of transforming organic matter into clean organic fertilizer that could be used or sold later.
Children are usually fascinated at the sight of worms and the neatly planned science project for the children educated not only the youngsters but the whole community as well.
There was a healthy hubbub among the parents, running around to collect and prepare all the necessary ingredients for the arrival of “dear red friends” – Californian worms.
The compost was ready, laid on the ground waiting for the final “guests” that arrived at last. Bedding (compost) has a major role in worm composting process since it is the environment where the worms live and eat. Like children that were relaxing under the tree after the day of hard work, so would do the worms in the bedding prepared by the kids. As soon as the worms arrived the children hurried to place them on top of the bedding and could not hold their thrill while observing how the worms were disappearing in the bedding.
The children knew that worms dislike light and if some of them stay on the surface, they are either unhealthy or dead and should be removed. Thus, the kids were anxious to see whether the worms would disappear in the compost, which they eagerly did giving the young “biologists” the sign that they had a perfect “shelter”. Numerous child hands were enthusiastically placing the rest of the worms on the pile - their “red friends” had to work hard as well. Now they needed to do the last thing to make the “guests” even more comfortable: they watered the bedding and then sighed with a feeling of deep fulfillment. All the young members of the club were both amused and content as they were a part of creating something really significant – “home” for their “friends” and a source of income for the community.
By Karina Matevosova, Development Principles NGO Expert

Story 2.

Waiting for the worms to arrive…

Starting April 20, 2007 Nalbandyan community members collected around 30 tons of manure in the beforehand prepared barn area. The community group finished preparation of 1 meter thick compound of compost layer by mixing manure, bio wastes and green mass. All conditions for releasing the Californian worms into the mass have been prepared. The members of the Ecology Direction of the YES rural community youth club participated very actively in this work and are very inspired by the project.
The children’s rejoice was even more evident as simultaneously with this very important event for the whole community they get knowledge on how to produce fertile bio-humus. Everyone is interested in the bio-humus production of and is very proud that they are part of this initiative.
It is remarkable that the Ecology Direction members organized regular guarding of the compost and already recorded the first innocent ‘crime’ – some local children made a slight digging in the layer hoping to find famous worms. After being stopped by the young ecology group activists’ condemning faces the unfortunate ‘thieves’ answered:
- You know guys, we can make wonderful fishing by using these worms! We heard that the worms are just excellent…
The Youth Club Members had to disappoint these local youngsters telling them that the worms did not ‘arrive’ to Nalbandyan village yet…
By Khachik Margaryan
Nalbandyan Community LeaderYES Youth Club Ecology Direction Trainer