Project Mature Bean! Part.1

A cool mountain morning at the demo plot

Since Darwin graduated from the Managua Agronomy University in 2019, he wasn't able to find stable work in his career until now. This means apart from a few internships while in university he has lacked the hands on experience needed to work with farmers. In fact, he has grown up in the small city of Jinotega and has never planted anything of his own! Darwin never lacks enthusiasm to try new things. However, I knew if he was going to mentor experienced farmers on the technical side of growing beans, he needed to grow his own! 

We had an older bag of red bean seed we had been using for promotion purposes in our workshops for the past six months. It was an older batch of seed, and while returning home from a workshop it started to rain and the bag got wet form a leak in my truckbed cover. While taking it out of the truck to store it again, the bag split open on us! We were able to recover the seed, but this meant we could no longer use it for promoting. So what do we do with this forty pounds of old seed? Plant it! 

We came up with "El Proyecto Frijol Maduro" or the Mature Bean Project. Darwin is in charge of growing his own acre of beans. Once the germination test of the seed proved to be 95% despite its age, we decided to move forward with the project! The plans were drawn up on our whiteboard:

1. Rent and acre of land, under a signed contract for 100 days, or one growing season

2. Treat the land for weed control

3. Till the land and soil preparation for the seed

4. Plow the land and plant the seed

5. Follow the La Semilla agricultural program chronogram of treatment

He had a fifteen day deadline to get the land rental contract signed, because time was running out in our second planting season! The next day, Darwin set out on his motorcycle to look for an acre to rent. This proved to be harder than he thought. He spent a week in step one! Some plots were to far away, to steep on the mountain side, only accessible by foot or horse or flooded by the rains. Sometimes a property owner's rental price was just far beyond reasonable. Finally, we narrowed the options down to two properties, and decided to rent a picturesque location twenty minutes from the city. We went to a lawyer's office with the property owner and singed a rental contract! 

Step 2. Darwin's focus was to treat the plot for weeds. Sounds simple enough, but this was a three day task due to worker delays. This was also where we almost walked away from the property even after paying the rent! There was to much reliance on the property owner to get this step done by Darwin. He needed to hire his own people to start the task. 

Applying a leaf fertilizer

Step 3. Finding a tractor to till the soil. That was a task that took five days in total. Once Darwin found a tractor to till the soil, we had to wait three days for the soil to dry out, praying for the rain to stop. When the soil was finally dry enough, the tractor operator could not be found! Thank God Darwin found someone else to do the job and the soil was turned over. 

Plowing rows with oxen as Jose David and Robert O. plant the seed

Step 4. Now Darwin needed more help to get the seed in the ground after plowing with oxen. We were thankful for a visit to Jinotega that weekend by the La Semilla team from Jinotepe! All the seed was planted by hand in one day! 

Jose David, Leslie O. and Darwin take time to admire their work

Darwin left to the city of Jinotepe for a week to continue more technical training on the bean agricultural program. When he returned to Jinotega and checked on the seed, he found an area of the land was ransacked by chickens! He was very surprised and upset. He talked with the land owner, and found out the chickens belonged to the neighbors across the street. Well, after telling the chicken owners that poison was going to be put on the plot if they didn't control their chickens, there have been no issues to date! Eventually, some chicken wire was put up on a portion of the property, just in case. 

The young bean plant are healthy and doing great!

Step 5. The beans are growing well now, approaching 40 days old. Darwin has been following our full chronogram of treatments to the seed. The property owner, Donald, also bought our seed to plant beans on another acre right next to ours. He is following our chronogram and happy with the results. Darwin is learning so much, not just about the beans, but the struggles every farmer faces in our community. He has not let these delays and setbacks discourage him, and he continues to demonstrate with his attitude, that he is working with God in this bean plot. The community is starting to take notice of him, our seeds and how we work with integrity and diligence! The beans should be ready to harvest at the beginning of January. I cant wait to return to Nicaragua (I am in Michigan for while) for the harvest, and experience the challenges this stage of the project will bring too! It is great to join Jesus in what He does everyday. We get to work together with Him, in growing beans and community relationships. As Darwin plants, Jose waters, but God provides the growth! 1 Cor. 3:6 

God is providing the growth