Share
RSSTomatoes and More
by The Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton
5/1/2005
Those who abide in me, and I in them, bear much fruit. -- John 15:5
The tiny village of Katakela in the Democratic Republic of Congo is very poor. School for the children, clothes to wear to school, even a pencil to use once they are there -- these things are luxuries in Katakela. Like his neighbors in the village, Ambroise Shinpauka had a garden behind his house, from which he struggled to extract food for his family, as well as another plot of land nearby that wasn't very productive.
But Mr. Shinpauka's life is changing. With help from the Diocese of Katanga in partnership with Episcopal Relief and Development, he and 64 other farmers in the village have banded together to make everyone's farms more productive. Education in agricultural techniques like crop rotation and diversification, so that two different crops can come from the same land, one in the rainy season and one in the dry season, have greatly increased everyone's yields. The diocese has provided improved tools for tilling the land. Now Mr. Shinpauka and his neighbors are rethinking their approach to getting crops to market -- up until now, it's been on a bicycle piled high and wide with baskets -- to generate a lot more of something very scarce in Katakela: cash.
It will be good when they get this problem licked, for Mr Shinpauka smiles as he reports a problem familiar to many North American gardeners as well: too many tomatoes!
