Last week we were passing through Mziza to check out the drinking well again. We were hoping for some inspiration on how to make the water safer to drink.

What we got was a great image of how compost effects maize. This is a teachable moment 10 months in the making: we taught people how to make compost, they made a compost heap, they used the compost on their veggies, and they forgot about the whole thing. I don't think they were ever convinced that composting actually helped anything... until now.

Here's what happened when they planted maize over top of the old compost site:

The maize in the foreground was planted on the old compost site. The maize behind was planted at the same time, all other conditions equal.



You can see three rows of maize on the left that are two or three times taller than the surrounding maize. The taller maize is healthy and will produce an average or better yield. The small maize will not offer much food.

My friend Emanuel standing on the same site with a compost heap.

We gathered a few of our farmers around to show them what was happening. When we asked why the maize was taller, they responded that the soil was better in that spot. When we asked why the soil might be better here, they didn't get it at first; they don't think of compost as having much power to grow. Then we asked what was on this spot before they planted. It soon clicked: compost!

They explained that they moved some of the compost to their vegetable gardens, but some remained and they simply turned it into the soil before planting their corn. Perfect!