Sixty needy Zimbabwean families were helped to survive by a generous donation from the pastors’ fraternity in Makhado (Louis Trichardt).

“You should see the joy on their faces when they receive one ‘baked beans’ tin of maize seed,” says Mr Pierre de Jager, formerly from Louis Trichardt. The donation of R1 000 covered maize seed and fertilizer, enough to save 60 families from starvation.

Pierre says that one tin of maize seed enables each of the 60 families to plant a small (10m x 10m) garden that will yield a crop of 100 to 120kg of maize to prevent starvation. This can only be done if a unique and specific farming method is used accurately.

“The aim is to help each family to eventually plant a 50m x 50m maize field that is a quarter hectare. With this farming method they will be able to harvest three tons from a quarter hectare. The first ton could be for food, the second ton could be used to pay the children’s education and the third ton could be profit,” says Pierre. He was appalled when he realized that many parents could no longer afford education for their children and that teenagers were illiterate and could not speak English. Even worse than the illiteracy is the poverty and even starvation.

While Pierre was conducting a training session on this unique farming method, one of his trainees reported the death of a fellow villager. He had died from hunger.

“They told me that the giant they face is not poverty, it is hunger,” Pierre said. In the Matopo Hills area all crops have failed totally for the past eight years.

The method Pierre teaches is called Farming God’s Way. With this method, a hectare will yield a crop of ten tons. A normal crop is six to seven tons per hectare. Currently, the national average produced is not even one ton per hectare but 300kg. The most successful crop by Brian Oldrieve from Zimbabwe, who developed this method, was a record of 16 tons per hectare.

In the Matopo area, a couple of groups have undergone the Farming God's Way training with Pierre and his interpreter and are now growing their own maize. People who come for training range from 80-year-old grannies to very young boys and girls.

Those who want to support Farming God’s Way or Pierre and Rentia de Jager or need more information can contact Hannetjie Boshoff on (015) 516 4145. Pierre’s email is [email protected]

Pierre and Rentia thank the pastors fraterityl for the financial donation as well as an independent home church group for their support, including a very welcome laptop computer and generator.