Agriculture

The BCI Agricultural Technical Center, located in YaoAn County, is being developed as a training facility for extensionists. Though it has been under development as a farm for more than three years, we will begin in 2008 to train and equip project coordinators and local extension agents. The farm is located on approximately 48 acres of sloped land in Chuxiong Prefecture. An agriculture methodology entitled Sloping Agriculture Land Technology (SALT) is being implemented to replenish the soil and maximize output. Eventually, this useful farming technique will be taken to other impoverished areas to be reproduced by many farmers in these regions. Future training will be geared to helping the rural farmer in new technologies, forage development, community development and providing basic medical assistance in poor villages. The effort is to equip trainees by using a 'learning by doing' technique. Those trained at our center will extend their knowledge into the lives of the people living in their home regions. Several minority groups have been targeted to contribute to the first class to be trained later this year

Also located at the center is a vigorous Nubian goat breeding station housed in goat barns. This new (to China) breed of goat grows faster and larger than the common local breeds on similar amounts of protein and grass, and is a hardy variety for our climate. This smaller project is intended to provide stock for an expansion of a micro enterprise development project, which equips poor families to raise goats. They are assisted at learning to produce good quality feed on unused land in the year prior to receiving their goats.