Self teaching (南非)

Learning how to use vetiver grass as a vegetative conservation barrier through instructions from a booklet and hands-on practical experience.

Aims / objectives: The manager of the farm was given a book and video on vetiver grass by the Mazda group from UK. His objective was to teach himself to improve his conservation system. Already he had a number of consercation strategies, including terracing, minimum tillage, mulching and strip-cropping, but he felt there was a need to better his syste,. Through self-teaching he gave himself an oppurtunity to do so.
There had been some vetiver plants on the farm for 40 years, and it held the soil in place where it grew. This vetiver grew into huge clumps comprising many splits (tillers). The book demonstrated how vetiver could be dug up, split and planted in a continuous barrier hedge for soil and water conservation. In other words, the book offered the possibility of improving on what was already there.
The approach therefore was to take ideas from a book, testing those ideas and see how they worked in practice. The approach has developed further by the farmer spreading his message to neighbours, some of whom have copied the system after visiting his farm and seeing the results for themselves. While the original handbook had been aimed especially at Indian farmers, subsequent to the successful experience of this particular farmer, a locally focussed handbook has been recently prepared in English and Zulu by the South African Vetiver Network.