The Mlondozi area is on the South African border with Swaziland and stretches about 50km south from the Oshoek border post. This was a rural re-settlement area under the previous government. Due to mediocre soils, agriculture in the area does require technical know-how and inputs for it to be productive and much of this technical support for the farmers has not been readily available. Agricultural production has been very low and the farming practices have led to a degradation of the soils and environment.

There are four wards involved in the programme and each one is controlled and facilitated by an extension officer. Charles Maseko is at Oshoek/Waverley, Eric Mashabane at Dundonald/Belevedere, Katherine Nkosi at Mayflower and Simon Tshabalala is at Dunbarton/Fernie. There are well over 5.000 farming families in the area, who have been producing barely enough food to survive on let alone have a surplus to sell. This project is starting to change this and create an income for farmers as well as conserve the natural resources.

The methodology employed relies on the transfer of technology by specialist resource people to the extension officers and the farmers, who then implement a comparative demonstration programme to compare the traditional farming practices with the new introduced improved technologies. The extension officers and the farmers are trained together as this has shown to be the most rapid way of getting the community farmers to evaluate and adopt the technologies. It is a new learning process and experience, which requires time for confidence to be gained and expertise to perfected. It is recommended that a group of five to ten farmers, preferably all within walking distance of each other, form a cluster with the extension officer facilitating open discussion, evaluation and farmer visits to each others plots. In the second and third years the group can be expanded as new farmers start to evaluate and adopt the technologies.

Technologies introduced
By using farmers to conduct their own demonstrations on their own land under the guidance of an extension officer results in practical learning and gaining experience by both the team members.

The initial aspect of this project was to do a soil survey as the soil is acid and does require lime to rectify this. It has been found that an annual surface broadcast of lime is sufficient to rectify any acidic problem as lime will leach slowly through the soil profile but as the soil structure improves, so the distribution of the lime in the soil profile will even out. In addition, lands are on slopes and contour planting to help stop soil erosion had been introduced. However, one of the major aspects was that aggressive ploughing was being done, which was leading to soil erosion and it was necessary to implement a strategy to halt this. Ploughing is an expensive element in crop production in this area and is often up to R 2.000-00 per ha.

In 1999 training in no-till maize planting was held with 18 farmers and the extension officer team participating. This was a new concept and there certainly was some scepticism about whether it would work. There was to be no ploughing and only a ripping was permitted to break up any compaction layer in the soil. After the first rains, the weeds emerged and were sprayed with Roundup® herbicide (contains 360g glyphosate per litre; SL: Reg. No. L 0407, Act No. 36 of 1947). About 7 days later when the weeds had died, a planting furrow was made, certified maize seed planted with a compound fertiliser and a residual pre-emerge herbicide was applied at recommended rates (Bullet® SC; contains 250g acetochlor + 225g atrazine + 225g terbuthylazine per litre SC; Reg. No. L 5623, Act No. 36 of 1947).

Weed control is one of the most important aspects to get correct in crop production. Apart from using herbicides, hand weeding, obtaining a good crop canopy to shade out weeds as well as good farm hygiene to prevent weeds from seeding in the areas around the lands was continually emphasised to the farmers.

The technologies introduced were the use of certified seed, the theory and practical application of both foliar and residual pre-emerge herbicides, pesticide safety, the use of soil analyses and fertiliser, record keeping and post harvest technologies. The programme is based on no-till systems and this has many beneficial aspects based on retaining a good soil cover to prevent wind and water erosion as well as to allow water penetration but prevent water evaporation, which increases the amount of plant available water. Emphasis was placed on retaining organic matter on and in the soil to ensure soil quality improvement, which will lead to sustainable crop production over time.

In addition to conventional maize, farmers have been introduced to Yieldgard® maize, which is resistant to stalk-borer attack. This is a major pest in maize producing areas and it can only be controlled with insecticide applications at critical timings. Yieldgard maize does not require pesticide applications for stalk-borer control.

Farmers are also being made aware of the importance of having crop rotations and demonstrations with soy beans and other dry beans are being done under the supervision of the ARC crop experts. Since this rural community has a huge cattle population and over-grazing is seen everywhere, demonstrations on various types of grazing and ground cover are being conducted in an attempt to improve feed quality for the animals.

In 2000 this programme was extended to 51 farmers and in 2001 there were 186 participating farmers. It is planned to have a maximum of 350 farmers in 2002. However, many farmers have seen the benefits of no-till crop production and commercial adoption is now common.

No-Till Results
There are many environmental benefits of no-till but a farmer's priority is food security. If the farmer can satisfy the need for food, any surplus then becomes profit or income. Part of the challenge of this project is to get farmers producing a surplus, which can be sold as grain or processed, and create wealth within the community. Wealthy farmers make a wealthy nation.

In the following table is a comparison between the traditional maize crop production and the no-till system in Mlondozi. The profit is the difference between cost of production and income per ha and is determined at the ruling price of maize.

YIELD (t/ha)	NO-TILL	CONVENTIONAL
1999	2.94 (+124%)	1.31
2000	4.01 (+19%)	3.36
2001	6.00 (+71%)	3.50
PROFIT (R/ha)
2000	2.809-00 (+25%)	2.249-00
2001	10.080-00 (+71%)	5.880-00

Other projects have shown that the longer the no-till programme continues, the cost of production declines and the profitability improves. Parallel with this goes the improvement in the soil conditions as well as the other environmental benefits.

The champion farmer for 2002 in Mlondozi was Mr. Josef Nkosi. In 2000 his maize harvest averaged below 1.0 t/ha; in 2001 his harvest under no-till averaged 2.5 t/ha; in 2002 his average maize harvest under no-till was 7.0 t/ha. He planted maize on slightly under 7 ha. This yield did create problems for him as storage and processing had never been required on this scale before. A further problem was 'how to handle the cash income?' as financial institutions have not regarded the rural community as customers and a solution had to be found. There are many other farmers in this community that are now experiencing similar benefits to those described above.

Teamwork, the transfer of knowledge and the implementation of technology are all making a significant contribution to sustainable and profitable conservation agriculture in Mlondozi.