Help Farmers Rear Silk Moths to Restore Forests

Currently 46 serious farmers are starting to set up a nursery. 25 in Ambodivoangy; 12 in Marovovonana; 9 in Ambalamahogo and this number increase every week. Possibly we will have 60 farmers by the end of May. We have been trying to encourage the poorest farmers to work with us, however it has been hard to contact them because they are always in the field. Therefore, we began scheduling our first meetings from 5-8 AM before they leave. We then continue our meetings at 8 PM after they have returned home.

This week the main work of CPALI/SEPALI team is to look for seedlings. The total of the seedling that we need to give to the farmers is at least 6000 , Denis has already taught farmer about germinating seeds. The first germination will be after 2 months. Now, the chrysalid are going to emerge, everyday Mario put the females on the trees to lay eggs.

Bertrand take care of the trees and the fence. He is cleaning the house we make effort to avoid the rats to get in the house. Tomorrow, both Mario and Bertrand go to the field to look for seedlings. Denis got a new phone orange.I spend a lot of my time to work on the computer and to receive many farmers who want to talk with me. I update WCS about cpali activities. I`m trying to set up a good communication between cpali and the farmers in each coba. I received many letters from different farmers to inform cpali about their improvements.

I have attached copies of our new SEPALI association cards that each farmer participating in the program receives. It seems to have become very "in" to have a SEPALI card in one's pocket.

• New SEPALI entrepreneur business card (PDF)