Traditional African tools, crops, and new farming methods all to feature
International aid charity, GOAL, will present visitors to this year’s National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co. Offaly, with an opportunity to experience the sights, sounds and smells of a typical African farm.
GOAL will use its exhibition space at the three-day event, which is being held this year from September 20th to 22nd, to demonstrate how some of the traditional farming practices that continue to be used in places like Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda are remarkably similar to farming traditions in Ireland more than 150 years ago.
The aid agency will also show how it is helping African farmers to produce more food for a rapidly expanding global population, one third of whom are currently fed through an estimated 500 million smallholder farms on an average land size of one GAA pitch.
The GOAL stand will allow people to see, touch and sample African crops like sorghum, cassava, chili pepper and sweet potato. Visitors will also have the opportunity to handle and test some of the traditional African tools, including shovels, hoes, sickles, wooden ploughs and other hand tools native to various regions.
Importantly, the exhibition space will include an interactive guide to some of the new farming methods that GOAL is promoting across parts of Africa, including the development of local agriculture markets, the use of mobile technology and the introduction of climate-smart agriculture.
“GOAL works with approximately 200,000 farmers across our countries of operation each year, helping some of the world’s poorest communities to grow more food, improve access to seeds and inputs, and sell more produce at better prices,” said GOAL CEO, Barry Andrews. “We promote technology that helps farmers get access to market information and improve yields, provide training and create opportunities for farmers to engage successfully with markets.
“We hope that our exhibition stand will help explain some of this work; highlight some of the main challenges faced by farmers in Africa, including water scarcity, drought and climate change; and how, with the support of aid agencies like GOAL, they are working to combat these challenges.
“Failure to produce more food will result in shortages and poorer health in developing countries, with damaging consequences for development and the potential for conflict within and between nations. It is important that we all understand that to prevent this, we must work with African farmers to increase their production and incomes in a sustainable way.”