Community Development Workers Association (Inc) (CDWAI) have many relevant ‘demonstrations’ for visitors. This isn’t a demonstration area, rather a family garden that provides nutritious food, and opportunity to showcase sustainable technologies that work. After the 1997 drought the CDWAI team worked especially in the Baiyer valley, in Kompiam (Enga) and in Telefomin district to train […]
Community Development Workers Association Inc
Posts by dave41
A simple, farmer demonstration speaks clearly of the value of mulch. Make two simple mounds, as if to plant kaukau (sweet potato). Leave one mound open, normal. The other mound, cover with leafy rubbish. Now take a simple watering can and pour about 7 litres of water over each mound. The mound on the left […]
Most everyone plants corn. Few people plant beans under corn, when the corn has established. This simple practice can provide a second bean crop for families, when corn has been harvested, but it also covers the soil in nitrogen rich leaves, killing weeds.
Large areas of Eastern Highlands have been reduced to expansive grassland with often uncontrolled fires damaging fallow plants and forest resources – fruit, nuts, timber. There is a pressing need to turn ongoing degradation into renewal and re-creation. CDWAI team members provide training and demonstrations in the use of varied technologies that local farmer/gardeners can […]
This is a kind of – To Whom it may concern message/post. Some words of experience that Dave and Ben would like to share with the wider world. You see, we two blokes – Dave the Kiwi and Ben the Aussie have been working in the New Guinea Islands on and off since the 1970’s […]
The CDWAI library is perhaps unique in PNG. It contains many resources for your group to make use of, written by international experts including Markus Muntwiler from Switzerland, Dr Dave Askin, Kiwi agronomist who worked in and around the PNG/Indonesia from 1988 right through to 2019 – with a break for cancer treatment and some […]
Introduction Planting of Vanilla in poly-houses is a simple technology but has not been tried in PNG, However, Mr. Rati Irikati developed some mega houses in Wau and planted Vanilla for the first time in a PNG Highlands area. The story has been a success. Mr. Irikati is here with me, CDWAI Team Leader David […]
In February 2021 the CDWAI team are submitting a proposal for agroecological interventions/changes in gardens that reflect the stress garden systems are under. Sloping land is intensively farmed. Sloping land experiences severe erosion – top soil loss is not easily reversed. The picture/map shows how many villages are in the project area.
Over 2017 and 2018 CDWAI is partnering with the Tsak Rural Women’s Empowerment Foundation in Wapenamanda District, Enga Province in the PNG Highlands. The Tsak is in the foothills of the main central ranges at altitude between 1700 and 2400 metres, warm to hot by day, cool, often wet and cold by night. There are […]
Farmers in PNG live with too much and too little rain. Too much rain is the main reason farmers make vertical ditches in their steep landscapes when making gardens. However, these same ditches carry away precious top soil. Depending on location topsoil maybe shallow on top of relatively infertile sedimentary deposits, uplifted by tectonic action. […]