The FOMI organic fertilizer factory, which has been producing high-quality fertilizers for a long time, which enable high production and restore soil fertility, also supports researchers who aim to develop or improve their skills. Currently, the factory is in the process of receiving researchers from other countries. This is a good sign that confirms the good relations between Burundi and foreign countries.
Pauline WAMBUI MIGAI is a researcher from Kenya, a lecturer at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, she came to conduct research here at the FOMI factory, she tells us about the research she conducted and why she conducted the research.
Pauline: I came to conduct research on organic fertilizers using waste, fertilizers that can help smallholder farmers. I was here at FOMI improving my knowledge about the production of organic fertilizers and seeking to understand the challenges they face in producing such fertilizers. I also learned about the quality of the manure and about the nutrients we find in the fertilizer.
Pauline MUIGAI says that what led her to choose to conduct her research at the FOMI factory was because it has modern and powerful equipment and capable professionals.
What led me to choose to conduct my research here at FOMI, FOMI has experts who helped me in my research activities; it has modern laboratories with sufficient equipment so that one can examine whether fertilizer has sufficient or poor effects on the plant. They helped me a lot.
This researcher also explains what the research he conducted at FOMI is going to help him with.
As someone with a project to see if the land can restore its fertility, learning and gaining knowledge about making compost, I believe I will be able to apply it in my country so that we can benefit from that waste by making compost. On the other hand, as a teacher, I will be able to teach people how to benefit from getting compost using the waste that you find scattered here and there.
Gustave Nkurunziza is a member of the innovation unit at FOMI and is the one who assisted the researcher in his research. He briefly explains how FOMI assisted the researcher and what are the benefits for FOMI of hosting researchers.
She came through a project implemented between Burundi, DRC and Kenya supported by Bio Innovate Africa in its unit to promote research conducted by women in the East African region. It is a project that aims to produce organic fertilizer, Biofertilizer fertilizer obtained by using insects (bacteria) that cause interaction between the plant and the soil where the insects provide the plant with Nitrogen and the plant to marry carbon what we call Isobium and finally we mix it with the soil ash known as mycolysis so that the plant can tolerate it well that is why she came to collaborate with FOMI in her research. The research she is conducting with the support of our unit goes hand in hand with what is being done here at FOMI because FOMI produces natural fertilizer that is mixed with mineral which is called “Organo Mineral” so we really need natural fertilizer whether it comes from livestock or from garbage that does not contain pesticides; Therefore, the Biofertilizer that we are trying to make here in East Africa is made by properly processing waste as he himself explained, so it is very much in line with the unit I manage and what we are doing at FOMI because it will help with the natural fertilizer that is much needed here and bring benefits because in our activities there is also creating new ones including those daily needs that enable us to make FOMI fertilizer, so his contribution to this research is that we will find something else that will be able to help and with quality.
Paulina: A message to the leaders of FOMI, I am very grateful for allowing people who are interested in learning and those who are conducting research on how to make fertilizers, and I thank all the people who supported my research. I ask FOMI to continue to welcome researchers who will come after me if I bring them to the country, even those from other countries, as they did for me..
Gustave Nkurunziza announces that in the unit he leads, research is a continuous matter, he asks the researcher Paulina MUIGA to make good use of what she learned here at FOMI and if it pleases her, to return to continue to delve deeper and be able to succeed in her project so that research at FOMI continues to move forward.
What I can advise him and I have already advised him is to continue to be diligent in continuing his activities as he has been doing for the three months that we have been with him and to continue to collaborate with the team here at FOMI and the team that they have so that we can continue to develop that technology. I also advised him that it would be interesting if we put together the technology they have here and the technology they have in Kenya because we are all interested in developing agriculture for the farmer in this region so that he can get enough food without getting tired. The advice I have given him is to put together the technology we are lucky to have, that is something he understands so that we can develop East Africa and the entire region and that is the idea of our ITRACOM Fertilizers organizations to expand areas. It is good that we also expand and research and technology so that we can all contribute to it.