Training materials
Field Manual
The newly updated Tiyeni Training Manual is freely available below for your use. Containing a step-by-step guide to Deep Bed farming from year one to year three, guidance for improving soil health and fertility, and our training philosophy.
The manual is for all trainers be they in Tiyeni, Government Agricultural Officials, staff in other NGOs and any landholder who wishes to adopt Deep Bed Farming.
DEEP BED FARMING - FIELD MANUAL
Guidance documents
Extension Circular and Fact Sheet on DBF from Malawi's Department of Agricultural Research Services (DARS):
Extension Circular - Deep Bed farming technology
Fact sheet - Deep bed farming technology 2022
Hardpans
There is a lot of confusion about what Hardpan is, not surprisingly because there are so many types of Hardpan. We have produced an explainer document below on this important topic.
How does group training work?
Tiyeni has from the outset sought to spread the word by training farmers to set up demonstration farms, for peer to peer learning.
We developed a decentralised model to include all farmers in a trainer group as part of the demonstrations. We call this the Decentralised Demonstration Garden approach.
For each training session, a different farmer’s land is used, in a carefully designed sequence over the season, in which different elements of the Tiyeni method are introduced. All farmers therefore all work in each other’s’ farms, share best practice, solve problems together, and end up comparing and caring for each other’s farms. This results in better crops and more cohesive community grouping.
