By Mamy Ratsimbazafy | Local Director
By Mamy Ratsimbazafy - Local Director We are working hard and looking forward to the end of the rearing season!! Everyday Bertrand and Mario go to the field to collect larvae that we placed on trees for to feed during the last 3 stages of larval development. We collect the larvae and put them in spinning baskets at CPALI house when they are ready to spin cocoons. The fact that the larvae change color right before spinning makes it easy to know when its time to return home!
We currently have 12 farmers working with in the COBA of Ambodivoangy. Five farmers are already able to begin the transplanting talandoa (larval host plant) they have been tending. Seven more farmers are ready to set-up a new nursery!
During this year, our goals with the farmers are: - Ro help the first five to transplant 1000 trees each on family farmers and in border forest sites ( this is the minimum number of trees need/farmer) - To collect enough seeds in July, August and September for all the new farmers and train the them how to care for the talandoa. This year the farmers will germinate their own seedlings and CPALI will give them the seeds (last year the project team germinated all the seeds and gave farmers small seedlings - a big improvement for us over last year!). This year CPALI must have more than 14,000 good seeds to support the new farmers in Ambodivoangy, and 2000 seedlings to complete the missing seedling stock provided to the first five farmers.) - By the end of 2009, The ultimate goal for the COBA is to have 5000 trees growing in the farmers land and 7000 seedlings in the farmer`s nursery.
Next year, hopefully beginning March 2010, the first five farmers will be able to produce 1kg of cocoons each. It takes one year for one tree to produce enough leaves to feed 5-10 larvae ( this is a new result after our recent rearing experiments in Maroantsetra and Manamby) . The rearing period in Makira begins in March and continues until July.
In Marovovonana, (CPALI's second target COBA) I met 5 farmers also interested in the project but I`m not sure if they are really serious – we will wait and see if they form a cooperative group and contact us.
Tomorrow, I will go to Manamby to assist Denis who has established CPALI's tree nursery and second rearing site.
Thank you for your interest and support!
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
