Take A Fence?

Well that's Christmas done! I hope everyone managed to engage family and friends over the last week or so and continue to do so until the end of the holiday. Friends have been busy Gambia side looking at ways in which we might fund fencing for our 500+ sapling trees. Our next hectare of trees (100 trees) has fencing arriving in January. 400mtrs of fencing to get these trees from 1mtr tall as they are now up to a maturity by which they overcome being worried by animals! Fencing raised its head in October and we really DO need to fence the trees to protect and to get the best possible number to full maturity and to cropping in about another four years. Its a wait but it will create great opportunity. We need to fence a further another four hectares of Cashew trees we already have. That is 800mtrs of fencing the size of four rugby pitches and 400 trees. We have a price at nearly £4,000 and are working on options that may be cheaper. Many thousands of trees are planted in Sub Sahara Africa each year and a great number cheaply without protection. So the % number that reach maturity for fruit or indeed for Carbon Offset is significantly lower if no protection is given. In the long run maintaining the planting at five hectares per year will give us 25 hectares in total when the first plantings crop that's approx 2,500 trees. This will provide a significant component in getting those Kerr Layen moving forward for themselves and creating a better community. Income can then underpin education, water supply and other regional needs. The village has been so grateful for all of the initial help from you all. They planted five hectares of Ground nuts (peanuts) in June and these are now harvested, a bumper harvest. Planted on land rented by us we will grow this plantation also year on year. It is managed for labour and resources by the village itself and by February 2023 the Groundnut Scheme should be self sustained by the village of Kerr Layen.

Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year.