Creative Garden Wageningen

Creative garden wageningen is so far one of the nicest place in Wageningen. Quite nice place to learn by doing and its pretty close to the Campus actually. I just wanted to make a short video about the garden. My music choose made clip little bit scary but its not really scary place reality : ) 

Primetime Farming in Turkey

Posted by Sukru Esin March 04, 2014 Turkish soaps are extremely popular from Morocco to Pakistan. Broadcast of a new episode often means that shops are shut down and streets are empty. There is, however, more to the Turkish mediascape: agricultural television, for example. A slew of projects had been launched across the country to manage poor agricultural management and outdated traditional practices, but with limited effect. In 2010, the  Turkish Ministry of Food , Agriculture and Livestock LaunchedTarim TV. Since then, ‘success has bred success.’ There are now 4 television stations in Turkey (1 government-owned, 3 private) offering dedicated 24x7 programming on agriculture. They broadcast talk shows  and documentaries round the clock on a variety of topics such as livestock, horticulture, staple crops, beekeeping… just to name a few. They provide information to farmers about government schemes, subsidies, weather forecasts et cetera. Most content can also be accessed online where it is archived for later viewing. This makes for a huge, growing repository- one can find almost all there is to know. Private TV channels also offer ad space. Private companies also help produce field demonstration films and documentaries. This way, an active agri-service sector is able to reach out to farmers all over Turkey. The Turkish economy is growing rapidly, matched only by that of China. Its agricultural sector is currently ranked eighth in the world. Thanks to growing private and public investment, the agricultural GDP grew from USD 24 million to USD 63 million over the decade 2002-2012. One can see agricultural TV shows playing being watched at tea houses and homes in farming areas. They have also broken through barriers and reached the marginalized, such as farmers in remote areas. This is not to say that just reach translates automatically into influence. There are plenty of farmers who watch these television shows but continue to stick to bad practices and outdated views. Nevertheless, with old ‘training and visit’ mode of agricultural extension long gone, agricultural television in Turkey has been able to bridge many knowledge gaps in Turkey. Websites of some prominent agricultural television networks Turkey: http://www.bereket.tv/ http://www.tarimturk.com/ http://www.tarimtv.gov.tr/index.php (government-owned) http://koytv.tv/ http://www.thewaterchannel.tv/en/thewaterplaza/the-water-blog

Black out, No More!

Pakistan is facing electricity shortage very badly. It’s obvious that government can’t solve energy crises in a short time. As a result of not very efficient governance, the energy crises is affecting the farming sector negatively.

Due to the frequency of power cut, one of the progressive farmers in Hyderabad thought outside the box and installed an innovative solar panel in the region. He irrigates also his crops thanks to this solar power energy without power cut.  It seems to be a long way to solve energy problems but is a step forward to it. Pakistani people should not forget that they have enough sunny days! 

Banana Wind Breakers

In Sindh Province (Pakistan) one of the main crop is banana and will increase the following years. The reason is that local people call the banana "cash crop".  Asim Agriculture Farm (AAF) is one of the few extraordinary progressive farms in Sindh. In order to prevent wind damages AAF engineers have planted tall varieties of banana all around the field and with this simple method , they are able to decrease probability of severe disasters at their farm. 

According to IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) the climate Change predictions in Pakistan will be dangerous due to the global warming. In Tando Allahyar some people already started to follow AAF’s good practices.

Conjunctive win win

Due to the lack of drainage network in Sindh province (Pakistan) the  majority of the farmers are facing water logging problems and as a result,  soil is becoming saline day by day. Once the field becomes saline, farmers can not harvest… As the majority of Pakistani’s income is dependent on agriculture, if they dont open drainage networks, people will face more difficulties… 

Some of farmers dug their own surface drainage. In this video from the Nawazabad Farm, it shows a very simple surface drainage canal that not only balances groundwater level but also collects seepage from the canal and used as water shortage. Basically Nawazabad farm is doing conjunctive water use at their field.
In these kind of areas where  there is water scarce, one of the best solution is conjunctive water use.