 Wow! That's amazing!
Corn “test plots” planted in northern Pakistan by TEAM agricultural advisers have yielded harvests 10 times greater than fields sown and cultivated in the traditional method for the area.
The traditional method is to simply broadcast seed by hand over a plot of ground and then plow it under. Local Pakistani farmers watched with obvious skepticism as TEAM advisers invested what appeared to be excessive time and effort in the planting process, placing seeds in neat rows, nine and a half inches apart and two and a half inches deep.
But eyebrows were raised again, this time in amazement, when the harvest results came in. In the traditionally sown field, 33 kilograms of seed produced a yield of 510 pounds of corn per acre. In the test plot next door, where only two and a half kilos of seed were planted in rows, the yield was 5,474 pounds per acre.
A second test location showed similar results. There, the traditionally grown field yielded 289 pounds of corn per acre, while the row-to-row plot produced 2,721 pounds per acre. Same seed. Same fertilizer. Same growing conditions. The difference was simply seeds planted in rows, nine and a half inches apart and two and a half inches deep.
“This means food on the table and maybe some money in the pocket for poor Pakistani families.” says Dave Davis, TEAM's coordinator of special projects and community development. In traditional cultures, credibility and trust are not freely granted; they are earned through actions. And the message that a follower of Jesus brings carries only the credibility that his actions have earned.
The TEAMHorizons magazine article “Pakistan: Building a Legacy of Trust,” which was written and photographed while the test plots were being planted, is available HERE. |
