Helping at Harvest
A how-to for community volunteers and students helping farmers record their GVF harvest (SVH-1).
Harvest is the busiest time of a farmer’s year, and not every farmer is at ease with phones or forms. A helper, such as a neighbor, a volunteer, or a high school son or daughter, can make the SVH-1 record with the farmer in about an hour for each hedge or plant. The farmer knows the field; you do the measuring and the writing.
Who can help
Community volunteers and retirees
Adopt a few farms or gardens nearby and help at harvest each year.
High school students
Help parents or relatives. It also makes a good science project: measuring, recording, and comparing results across a class.
Farmer groups and staff
Members helping each other, and NGO or extension staff.
Before harvest day
1
Agree the day with the farmer: just before or during harvest, before the crop is taken away.
2
Check the farm has a GVF Site ID. If not, register it together first (2 minutes).
3
Bring: a phone with KoboCollect or the SVH-1 web form, or a printed SVH-1 and a pencil; a 20 m tape, or a rope with knots at 2, 5, 10, 15 and 20 m; 6 small sticks as markers; a bag and scale if you will weigh the harvest; water and a hat.
On the day: step by step
1
Choose one hedge or single plant with the farmer. Each gets its own form.
2
Mark the distances. Lay the tape or rope along the ground, straight out from the hedge edge (from the center of a single plant), on the uphill side (U). Push in a stick at the edge (U0) and at 2, 5, 10, 15 and 20 m. If the next hedge or plant is closer than 40 m, the last stick goes at the mid-point (M) between them.
3
At each stick, take the same sample, for example 3 plants, 1 m of row, or 1 m². Score crop vigor (1–5), harvest and weigh or count the sample, and note pest damage, root galling (dig up 3 plants), Striga, termites, and how easily the soil crumbles.
4
Repeat on the downhill side (D).
5
Take the photos the form asks for, if you can.
6
Ask the farmer the background questions: hedge age, crop, water, the rain in the last 12 months (Section E), and so on. Let the farmer answer; you write it down.
7
On the last page, enter the farmer’s email (or yours, if they have none) and the Site ID, then send. With no signal, save it as a draft and send it later.
Good practice
•The farmer is the expert. Ask rather than guess.
•Write what you see, not what you expect. Leave an item blank rather than invent an answer.
•In dry years a poorer crop right beside the hedge can be normal. Record it as it is, and record the rain for the year in Section E
•Students: ask permission first, work in pairs, and take care in the sun and in tall crops.
•If you used paper, enter the form online within a week, or give it to your GVF coordinator.
•Thank the farmer, and share the results when they come back.
Questions: [email protected] or the #GVF WhatsApp group. Back to the GVF page.