Through the Field School, the residents of Jantho Lama Village are learning to value and use nature to improve their incomes

Banda Aceh. The informal Field School training activities held in Jantho Lama village, Aceh, from December 2007, culminated on February 17, 2008, with a Field Day themed “Community Based Organic Farming”. Jantho Lama Village, with a population of 130 people, most of whom work as farmers, is located in the furthermost corner of Aceh Besar Regency.

On Field Day, the participants of the Field School training made various presentations on the activities they had undertaken, as well as exhibiting the results, such as compost and all kinds of organic plant fertilizer. This program, presented by the Field Assistants of the Watershed Management team of ESP Aceh, received a warm reception from the local people and invitees from neighboring villages, as well as representatives of the regional government and Non-governmental Organizations.

Khairiyati, one of the 30 participants of the Jantho Lama Field School training acknowledged that the Field School provided a great deal of knowledge about how to compost and to use the results for farming. “Compost, which provides nutrients to the soil with or without rainfall, is used to fertilize the rice we are growing in our rain water fed rice fields. With compost, our crops grow well even when there is no rain,” Khairiyati said.

This mother of two children added that the management of dry waste was also one of the main topics of discussion during the Field School training that interested the participants most. “Besides collecting waste like leaves for compost, we also collected plastic trash, such as mineral water bottles that can be used in the plant propagation process,” explained Khairiyati.

Besides Khairiyati, many other participants said they were already feeling the direct benefit of the Filed School training. Saifudin, the Field School class chairman, acknowledged that composting was a much more effective way of fertilizing fields than the usage of chemical fertilizers. “When we used chemical fertilizers, after only three harvests all of our chili plants would die. But now that we are using compost as fertilizer, we can harvest chilies two or three times a week and our plants are still thriving. Our income has automatically increased,” Saifudin said.

Now that Field Day has come and gone, the Jantho Lama Field School participants are finalizing their action plans to follow up on things they have learned. “I want to improve health facilities here in Jantho Lama so that pregnant women don’t have to make the long trek over damaged roads to deliver their babies. The more midwives we have here the better,” said Khairiyati.

Sari Wattimena, ESP NAD