Farming God's Way
In Genesis chapter 1, we read how God, our awesome and wondrous Creator, created everything in the heavens and on the earth and He looked and saw that it was good. He created the light from which all life derives its source. He created air, water and nutrients and their complex cycles upon which all life is supported. He created the soil and all its living organisms both visible and invisible. He created plants bearing fruit and seed after their own kind and He created animals, and finally He created man. Everything He created was good and productive and fruitful. Nothing the Lord created was without purpose and all of creation fitted together in a maze of complex inter-connected relationships which are still trying to be fathomed by man to this day.
One of the biggest sectors of untapped potential in developing countries worldwide, is agriculture. Agriculture should provide national food security whilst employing the highest percentages of the population. In Africa, more than 45% of the population is involved in agriculture. However, because of the many failings of conventional farming practices and the negative societal stigma of farming, the percentage of people working in the agricultural sector is declining annually. Year after year the rural poor stream to urban centres in the hope of finding employment.
The garden that God planted in the east of Eden, was the most beautiful, fruitful and productive food garden that has ever existed. Since the creation of the world, these principles and truths have been on display for us to learn from, but we have been blinded by leaning on our own understanding and the traditions of men. The Master Farmer knows what is best for His people, plants, soils, soil microbiology and how to keep the land in a state of sustainable fruitfulness…all we need to do is humble ourselves and come closer and closer to aligning our ways with His ways.
Equipping the poor for an Abundant Life in Christ
The African continent has the most natural resources of all the world’s continents. It has vast mineral, precious-metal, and oil resources; excellent agricultural potential; wonderful people; abundant water; and exceptional biodiversity.
In contrast to her potential, Africa is also the most poverty-stricken, with extremely low standards of living, famines, high levels of undernourishment, shocking infant mortality rates, disease, wars, dependency, poor education, deforestation, corruption, and high inflation as hallmarks of what the continent represents.
Subsistence farmers account for a very high percentage of the African population who are living undernourished and degraded lives. The current yields of these farmers are well below their family’s food security requirements, which necessitates the importation of millions of tons of grain every year.
Farming God’s Way is an amazing, Godly solution to the food security and poverty crisis for the rural poor. Farming God’s Way is not just a technology but a well-balanced biblical, management and technological solution for the agricultural domain, equipping the poor to come out of poverty with what God has put in their hands and revealing the fullness of Jesus’ promised abundant life.
Farming God’s Way Values
Farming God’s Way is a resource given to the wider body of Christ to EQUIP THE POOR and BREAK THE YOKE OF POVERTY.
1. Farming God’s Way is rooted in a deep, heartfelt consideration for the poor, based on our founding Scripture, Isaiah 58:1-12 (NIV).
2. Farming God’s Way is not just TECHNOLOGY. Instead, it is a tool for equipping into the “agricultural domain” with three integrated spheres of influence: Biblical, Management and Technology. All three have a significant role in ushering in the promised abundant life of Jesus Christ.
3. Farming God’s Way is a non-organizational, non-denominational, apolitical entity made up of a voluntary relationship network of people.
4. Farming God’s Way is an expression of the Good News of the Kingdom of God, which transcends and supersedes all cultures.
5. Farming God’s Way has a decentralized but coordinated approach to extension. We encourage a liberal extension by well-equipped trainers, whilst encouraging relational feedback for streamlining regional impact.
6. Farming God’s Way is a free God-given gift to the wider Body of Christ, enabling and mentoring them to extend and implement Farming God’s Way under their own coverings into the communities they serve.
7. Farming God’s Way discourages the perpetuation of the dependency cycle through handouts, handups, or cash loans except in the case of urgent short-term disaster relief. Instead, we encourage the empowerment of the poor with the knowledge to be able to come out of poverty with what God has put in their hands.
8. A “stewardship team” voluntarily serves and oversees Farming God’s Way.
20 Reasons Why We Do The How
Understanding exactly why God’s ways are so effective.
General Benefits
1. Minimal Runoff
2. Minimal Erosion
3, Improved Soil Infiltration
4. Minimizing Evaporative Loss
5. Cooler Soil Temperatures are Better for Seedling Growth
6. Don’t Waste the First Rain
7. Improved Weed Control
Soil Improvement Benefits
8. Improved Water Holding Capacity
9. Improved Fertility
10. Nitrogen Fixing through Rotation with Legumes
11. Reduced Compaction
12. Improved Aeration
13. Soil Microbiology Improvement
Economic Benefits
14. Pest and Disease Control
15. Reduced Field Preparation Cost and Time
16. Reduced Fertilizer Loss
17. Improved Drought Tolerance and Risk Spread
18. Reduced Irrigation Costs
19. Improved Crop Efficiency
20. Yield Improvements
FOUNDATIONAL SCRIPTURE: ISAIAH 58v1-12 NIV THE TRUE FAST
1 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.|
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to shelter the poor wanderer, when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
