September 5, 2025 • 46 mins
In the sixth episode of Food, Flowers, & Fun, Medefo Talom of One Home, One Pawpaw talks about:
- A mother’s legacy
- A passion for people and papaya
- A mindset of openness
- A love of singing
- Much, much more!
You will love this energetic and visionary farmer!
Connect with Medefo at:
Connect with K at:
- Website: https://www.penlightfarmers.com
- YouTube: @k.castrataro3466
- Facebook and Instagram: @penlightfarmers
- Podcast (audio): https://www.penlightfarmers.com/podcast
- Podcast (video): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIVBn53rrIsTwS4ag6hH4DHnxG_Lxqt7x
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
How can an openness to newthings transform your farm life?
Join Cameroonian Papaya FarmerMedefo Talom to find out on this
week's episode of Food, Flowers,and Fun: Visits with farm women
around the world. We aresponsored by Pen Light for
Farmers (00:17):
helping overworked farm women create the farm lives of
greater purpose, energy andpeace that they've always
wanted.
If you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
(00:40):
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you.
How do
you get away from the cares ofthe day? Restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed, stock. Chatwith women around the world to
raise food, flowers and fun withyour host, K Castrataro, that's
(01:04):
me.
Well, hello everybody, andwelcome to this edition of food,
flowers and fun. This is apodcast where we talk to women,
farmers and farmer supportpeople around the world. I am
your host, K Castrataro, and Iam so excited today to introduce
(01:25):
Medefo Talom Sandrine, who isfrom Cameroon, and she's just
got an amazing story of how shesupports farmers and her growth
into this whole agriculturalbusiness, and then to talk about
some of the struggles she seesin agriculture and for women in
(01:46):
the circle. So welcome. Talom...Medefo,
thank you so much.
Thank you so much. I'm verydelighted being here with you.
It's a pleasure.
So I'm wondering if you want tojust start and and tell us how
(02:07):
you got into agriculture becauseyou didn't grow up in a farming
family. No.
Okay, thank you again. Oncemore.
Okay, let's start. Soagriculture, to me, has always
been a passion. And how didthat? How did I get that all in
one wrapped up, I think it cameas a God given purpose to me,
(02:31):
because I've never had abackground of like family
members, nobody, nobody in mylineage is a farmer. But while
cutting across high school, Ijust had this within me, because
I felt that what was thenecessary like, what is really
necessary in in my country,Cameroon. So I saw that food is
(02:56):
something that you can reallyget everybody involved, because
everybody eats, and I wanted toget No, that's right. And
unfortunately, in so many partsof our world, and probably in
many parts of Cameroon, noteverybody eats on a regular
basis. And so this food securitya very important cause. Yeah, I
(03:16):
agree 100%
Yeah. So, so I stole myself,looking, looking, looking
around. I found no youths. Soit's like the farming thing was
mostly carried out by all people
from 45 and above. Meanwhile,the youths, nobody want to get
involved in agriculture. Belike, But meanwhile, everybody
(03:39):
eat. So he was like. I askedmyself, so this thing, How
sustainable is it going to be ifus the youth don't want to get
involved in agriculture? Andthen I started doing research,
and I I saw that something burstout from within. I'm like, Okay,
I'm going to do it was reallytough from the start that I
believe that if something is notthat tough, it's not meant for
(04:00):
me. So I told
myself something and similar,that there's, there's always the
easy way to do things, and thenthe harder exactly do. I always
gravitate to the hard one,
yeah.
And, and then I said, Okay, Istarted making inquiries, asking
people, and they were like, whywould you want to choose
(04:22):
agriculture of all fields? I'mlike, This is what I want to do.
Just give me, just tell me whatyou think about. So I was going
about to get mentors. And somepeople, they were wild. They
were marveled, like, oh, wow,young lady like this with this
kind of Brazil. So that's how Iwent to the University that
studied agriculture. I wrote theconcu, and I passed it. And of
course, I saw myself in schooldoing agriculture, and they
(04:45):
train us how to go places, howto farm, all of that. It was
very strenuous, but I hadalready said it. I see this my
side. I was a little bit fatter.And when I started, when I
started schooling, I saw how Ireduced the.
Was we started school, I think6am to about 7pm I was not used
to that. No, no. And, man, Igotta know, like ag students, I
(05:10):
don't think in the United Statesthat's, that's the way they do
ag training. I
think they necessarily do six toseven. They take classes. They
might do some Yes,
it was a two way thing, storyand practical. And because I had
never known anything aboutagriculture, I saw majority of
(05:31):
my classmates. They weigh fasterthan me, because now we are
missing the story. After that,you have sticks to the farm. So
when we go to the family, yousee me spending a lot of time
because I was trying to catchup, I was trying to read, I was
trying to find out. I would justwant to turn and I will see some
people already write. Their bedswere already done. They've
already planted that. I'm like,Ah God, please help me on this
(05:51):
one. And of course, to cut thelong story short, I I forced
myself I have to study. I haveto double it, because I know
okay, I'm I don't have any clueon what I'm doing, so I had to
force myself to study hard.Double, in fact, triple, did
research, went to the Ministryof Agriculture, had some and how
God does His things. Startedsending me people that gave me
(06:13):
guidance. They really helped me,and I came out with flying
colors. Grace, all glory to God.And you know what you
want to say, practice, makesperfect. I didn't just want to
leave school and then I go tomaybe work in offices. Or I
wanted to be practical aboutagriculture. I wanted
(06:35):
to meet, yep, yes. I put my handin the dead and I showed him
that. Okay, this is what we aredoing. This what you have, we've
learned, and this is what we'retrying to incorporate. How can
we change? How can wefacilitate? How can we add your
yield? That's that. Those weremy my problems. Because when I
go to the farm, I see how theythey are, they strain to farm.
They will sit in the farm forus, and then at the end, you
(06:57):
want to get the benefits.Because the difference actually
between those who go to schooldoing agriculture is that you
can actually, you have all yourrecords, you follow it up and
you know, okay, this is mybenefit. This is what I'm
having. So you have all of that.But with our parents, they don't
really care about that. Theyjust know that, okay, I'm going
to the farm, and at the end Isell if I have 100 friends, so
(07:18):
they don't even know if they'remaking profit or not. Yeah, but
it has to come in. I had tofollow up and tell you now,
okay, now, okay, this is how wehave to do. If you check and
check, you see that, Okay,finally, are you doing? Are you
making again or not? And I sawmany changes. I even know some
people were very adamant tochange. We're like, no, no. This
house. We've been doing itbefore. So, so I had to live
with them and all of that. So Ididn't have a lot, like, a very
(07:40):
big space to to start doing
like large, large scaleproduction. So that's why I had
to come up with a nursery that Icould be able to supply seats
and ceilings. That's how I gotin contact with many farmers,
because everybody needs seeds,right? You can
a little bit. I'm gonna jump inand you know your your passion
(08:02):
for seeds and seedlings issomething that I just, I really
enjoyed hearing about. And sotalk to us about about how you
realized that that was the placethat you could really start to
make a difference for farmers.Okay, fine. The first thing is,
I discovered that the problemthat every farmer has is the
(08:27):
quality of seeds. Because whenyour seed is being tampered,
definitely your produce istampered. So it starts with the
seed. If you don't have
a very good seed, high yieldingseed, or resistant seed,
definitely your whatever you'redoing, is going to go in vain,
(08:50):
or you're going to have littleor no produce. So that's the
primary focus, you see. So Ithen said, I have to go into the
root of this. Let's start. Let'sgo to the start of all this
matter. That's why I had to nowsay, Okay, let me get to the
seeds, or the seedings. So I gotfarmers, different farmers, and
big producers of seeds. Okay,then I had to now, you ask me,
(09:15):
why is that excellent papaya.Your
family, and papaya.
Okay, the main reason is that Imy mom. My mom, she's of late,
like now she's, I think fiveyears ago she passed, she she's,
she's a lover of papaya. So thespacey that I'm doing is Kalina
(09:40):
dwarf, specie, okay, so she, shewas a lover of papaya, and when
she died, just when we buriedher, and on her grave, about
three months later, we saw apapaya germinated, germinating
from her head, like the sidewhere she was laid. So I was
like, Oh, is this?
You, is he telling me something?So maybe should I? Should I?
(10:02):
Because I wanted to tell you,see, that I didn't know which
particular one I was seeingbetween you, see, so when that
happened, I was like, Okay, I'mgoing to go for this. So I
started off, and the journey hasbeen amazing. Even with a lot
with the challenges that wehave, I always have people that
always like, Okay, let's trythis. Let's try this. And I'm
someone who never gives up ifthere's if
(10:24):
I know that there's always away, even if it's not working, I
just have to retry and try andtry it's going to be perfect. So
that's the story I love. I lovethat attitude. First of all,
like that, this whole mindsetthing is something that I've
really, really grabbed onto inthe last year or so, and and you
really can change so much aboutyour condition just by having a
(10:48):
positive mindset and that, thatbelief that no, there is a way
to do this. I don't, I don'tknow what it is yet, but I'm
going to find it like, that's,that's the mindset that has
changed the world throughouthistory. That's that's the
mindset that, you know, had theWright Brothers flying and it,
you know, has Edison and ventingthe light bulb and all of these
(11:10):
kinds of things. Because theysaid, I don't know how, but it
happens.
Start dealing with papayaseedlings. So where were you
collecting the seed from? Wereyou getting it from commercial
growers? Were you getting itfrom seed companies? How did you
get started doing that?
Okay, initially, I got it fromcommercial
(11:35):
producers, and then I had, I hadone training. We had
an empowering session one timewith the Mina there. So I met
some seed producers there. Weexchanged contacts, like
networking, and then Idiscovered the because with what
(11:55):
they it was satisfied. So Ireally got encouraged. And then
they started supplying me theseeds. And then I discovered
that giving because the timing,given the timing to plant the
seeds, farmers are not veryconscious with time. So that's
the reason why I had tointroduce the nursery. So we
have to, because when you'redoing a nursery, takes about two
(12:18):
months or six to seven weeks. Soby the time they're doing other
activities in the farm, beforethey want to know it's already
the time to plan papaya, andthey have not yet nested.
By the time they want to nurseis already about almost to the
end of the planting season. So Ihad to come in to do the
(12:39):
nursery, and then I nurse, andthen I sell to them the next
seedlings. Okay, so thedifference between the seed and
the ceiling, because I do theseeds, the ceilings and the pre
germinated seeds, okay, based onthe distances. So there are some
people that are encouraged. Ifthey are very far, I send the
seats themselves. There's a waywe do all the packaging so that
(13:02):
it gets them in the right shape,and then we send and then we now
give them directive on how to goabout that
if the distance is very long,like across rivers and seas and
all of that, because it'scarrying the difficulty with the
ceilings is, it is it is thatit's a little bit heavy,
(13:22):
especially when you're taking,like, from 1000 it's quite
heavy. I have to stay into verylong distances. That's the
reason why I had to initiate theidea. All these things didn't
just come at once. I did it bitby bit. And when I saw this view
cuts, I was like, how am I goingto break break through this one?
And now I'm talking about thisis not that it just came like
(13:43):
that. So these are, I've beendoing this like for three years.
Okay? I've been having courses,and then I'm trying to, then
I'll sit back to say, Okay, howare you going to do this?
Because now what I want to workon is, is the, the the the
one second, let me, let me getone of the ceilings so you can
see, all right, sure. Okay, sothere we go. Oh,
(14:06):
see this. This is one of it.This is one, can you see that?
So this is a lot like a maple, amaple lobes,
but it's, oh, it's reallybeautiful.
I
Okay, so this is, this is theKalina spacey, the dwarf Kalina
(14:29):
is quite, very short. It takesfrom between seven to nine
months today. Okay, so this ishow, this is what we talk about,
a ceiling. This is one. One ofthese is 1000 France. We're
going to convey that to yourdollars. So this is this is it
so and, and I also do tea. Thisis the mint tea. This is the
(14:49):
means.
So you see, I also do theseedlings as well, and also
stevia, yeah. So I'm trying tointroduce now teas, because.
Is raining, season is cold, somy my difficulty right now, my
difficulty right now. It's, yousee the back? You see the
plastic bag, right? Yes, here isa soil. This soil. I made the
(15:13):
soil myself. Because I doorganic I mix
organic soil, like the soil, ifyou see like, let me show you my
hands. I'm going to show youthat I love this.
So you see this is, yeah, thisis dark because it is my
composition. So I as well dotraining on how to compose,
(15:34):
because this soil, it takes justthree days to germinate, three
days because it's really rich,really the mixture, yeah, it's
really rich. So I also dotraining for farmers to get best
soil compositions using organicmeans, even their waste in the
in the kitchens, just just somany things involved. So my main
(15:54):
difficulty right now that I'mtrying to get is to reduce this
soil in a way that we can havewe can send even 1000 without
having too much weight, becausejust this one you can, it can be
like about 0.252
0.2
or 0.3 or four kg, just likethis. So you're, you're
(16:15):
basically, you're the cost tothe farmers is coming from the
weight of the soil. It's notcoming from the plants
themselves. It's so if youcould, yeah, that you could
reduce expenses Exactly.
So I really want to reduce andthe weight itself, the weight,
because if you see all of these,because you have the soil that
(16:36):
I've mixed here, you have thisplastic bags, and you have the
seat. So this is doing one thatwe're giving out. Yeah, okay,
and how far do you ship them?
Um, I don't, I don't know howI'm going to measure the
distance, because I'm using itbased in Cameroon. I'm still
doing local
language here. This is why
(16:59):
we're
talking
Sure.
Okay, so about 5000 about 5000kilometers, okay, 5000 10,000
kilometers, yeah, it depends onhow, how far you are. So that's,
I'm saying that that's why weare doing the seeds, the pre
(17:22):
germinated seeds, and theceilings, for those, for those
around where we are, we we givethe ceilings, right? But when
you're way, way far off, theywill give you the seeds, or the
pre germinated seeds. I don'thave them here because,
wait one one second I haveseeds, but I don't have the
pigeons.
(17:46):
I love it.
So this is the seed. I don'tknow we're going to see that.
Let me just get one. So this isa seed. Oh, look at it. It's so
tiny. Yeah, so tiny. And how?How tall do the papaya plants
get your dwarf plants.
It is about, it's not, it'sabout two, not two meters, even
(18:09):
one, one meter five, 1.5 Yeah,
just like, like, quite short,anybody? Oh, sorry, are they an
annual plant, or are theyperennials? So like, do they do
they bear year after year? OrYes, year after year for four
years after years, for fouryears. Okay, alright, so it's
(18:32):
kind of a mid it's like amidterm plant. So it's not yes,
but it's not like an apple treethat you can Yeah, exactly. It's
in
between, alright, yeah. And thenwe have to, we have to get that
up after like four years,because when you're doing it for
commercial reasons, yeah, okay,you have to carry because the
(18:52):
production rate reduces for thefirst year you can have about 20
fruits on in a tree, 20 fruits.The second year you can have
about 18 so it reduces as theyear years, all right? So it
reduces from the first year on.So the first year is actually
the highest production, yes,yes. Okay, so that that takes a
(19:12):
lot of management for for thefarmers to make sure that
they've got a good, steady, uh,replacement system going on. So
you must Yes, yes, you must be aperson.
Of course.
It's quite amazing. It's quiteamazing. Working with farmers is
(19:34):
really tedious, because you haveto explain and explain and
explain again, and someone belike, no, just hold on. We're
going to see how we're going toget to this particular point.
But then it's working. It'sactually because now I can
really boost that the farmersthat I work with have really
seen results. Having you'rehaving great success with the
(19:55):
with the farmers tell becausewere you, have you been working.
Working with existing papayafarmers, or have you been
convincing farmers to switchfrom a different crop to papaya?
Okay,
that's why the entire process isa little bit difficult, because
I started with convincingfarmers to swap together, and
(20:19):
then I had to show them theadvantages why we are planting
this particular specie. Okay, sonow what I'm doing is that the
people who got it the first yearnow the other people now see the
results. That's why we have moreclients now. We have more
farmers diving into it. But thefirst year was it wasn't really
easy, even though, when I showyou the fruit. You it's very
(20:41):
appetizing. I really, is itreally, am I really setting out
like, yes, because I plantedone, I tried myself, but I'm
bringing it to you. I don't justsay something like, oh, okay,
this is it in the blues. No. So,so, so you've had some success
with your first year farmers
(21:02):
tell me what that success lookedlike for you. Was it increased
yield? Was it higher quality?Was it all of the above? What
was it that they really loveabout your plants? Both? The
first thing is the the qualityof the seeds. It was excellent
because it was diseaseresistant, resistance. You
didn't You didn't have to do alot
(21:23):
to prevent it from pests or allof these insects. So the first
thing is, it was really diseaseresistant. Secondly, it's the
fruits are really big
and they yield as well. Okay, soI need the space see that I talk
about the Kalina dwarf specie.It's quite short in a way that
(21:44):
harvesting is very easy. Youknow, the normal papaya tree is
really tall.
To harvest it, you really haveto take your time, because there
are also techniques inharvesting, okay, but with this
one, I don't even strain ingiving lessons on how to harvest
your fruit, because it's just,it's almost your height. It's
(22:05):
almost your height. There aresome that you are way taller
than, so you just have to pluckit out. So you're saying that
the so the plants are areshorter, and they're like, so no
ladders. You don't need to doladders. You don't need any
other equipment to beharvesting. You can just harvest
exactly right on the ground. Soit is a lot like apple trees,
where the standard apple treeswere, like, 20 or 30 feet tall,
(22:28):
and you did ladders, and it wassuch a pain. And now you can do
the dwarfs, and you can, youknow, trellis, them walk on the
side, and they're all like theapples are just
exactly papaya is Ah, now, doyou have to stake the papayas?
Are they? Do they have to betrellised? Or are they strong
(22:48):
enough to stand on their own?They are strong enough this one
is very easy to deal with.That's why we have many people
wanting it. And then I told youabout what we introduced this
year, because each year I'mtrying to add value. Like, okay,
what can we do? What can we addso that we can so this year I, I
involved everyone. So I wasdoing an operation, one home,
one football. Because when Iintroduced you the purport, I'll
(23:10):
have to talk. I i can get asmall group, I get a contact
person, then I get a group ofmaybe house heads, then I talk
about it. You can you, youeverybody seem interested?
Definitely, if I have 50 personsin the crowd, about 49 we want,
we want the Kalina forthemselves.
So after that, I will now,because the truth is, people are
(23:33):
scared to go into theagriculture because there's
nobody to to give them directiveon how to do it. But I am there.
You get the you get theceilings, the soil. I have soil
prepared. If you want me toteach you how to prepare your
soil, I definitely do. I dofollow ups until you have your
your fruits, in your in your inyour backyard, or maybe your
farms. Yeah, so that the entireidea is just amazing. That's why
(23:57):
I'm I was like, God, thank Youfor this idea. Yeah, many people
love eating papaya, because whenI did a survey, I found out that
about 89% of the population eatspapaya, and they love it. But
now the prices have skyrocket.Is very expensive in the market
right now, so everybody wants toplan at least two in their
compound. Okay, and so have youfound that some I'm sorry I
(24:22):
jumped right in. And we do havea have a lag, so I sometimes
don't pause enough to let thesound
travel from here back toCameroon.
But I'm curious, do any have anyof your backyard growers? So the
people who've got one or twotrees, have they decided to
(24:42):
start selling it as well? Or dothey are they basically using it
for home use right now? I thinkno, nobody wants to sell they I
have some people that planted itat their backyard, then later
on, since they saw that, theresult was good, they now want
to go in to do it. Come.
Charlie like they want to getfarms to plant because the
(25:04):
papaya as well is very sweet andit's thick. I actually this year
I had to plant some in my farmbecause I don't have a very big
space.
The reasons why I had to do thenursery to try to ecommize with
the space and get more of theseedings right, because the
planting distance for it is twometers by two meters. So that's
(25:24):
a lot of space to cost away.Yeah. So in a hectare, you have
about 2500 plants, you see. Sothat's a lot, a big space, and I
don't have that. So I plantedabout 20 or 30 like that in my
in my small farm, so that I'llbe able to also show, this time
around, I'm going to show, I'mgoing, I'm not just going to
talk about this and my phone inmy farm or call someone who has
(25:48):
planted it. I'm going to say,Okay, this is my farm seed for
yourself. So, yeah, I have, Ihave targets for every year,
like, okay, next year, what am Igoing to do? Because next year
I'm going to add something. I'mjust going to add and add and
add. We keep going.
I'm going. This was a beautifulsegue. So add and add an ad. So
(26:09):
here we have, here we havemadefo, who is just like a ball
of energy and inspiration.
What do you do to keep yourselffull of that inspiration and
energy. Because, you know, youjust started a new business, and
it's only been two years, right?Yes, yes, the first year, am I
(26:30):
right? You grew like 20,000
seedlings. Is that? Is that whati Yes, so that was like a lot
for a first year and and howmany people do you have working
with you?
I have just two people workingwith me,
three of you. It's three of youtaking care of us. But I had two
(26:53):
other people like who partneredwith me to do the business. So
the first year, I had somepartners. We worked together. So
the I was doing the 2000 becausewe were three of us, even though
I do, I did my all the sales, Idid it, but the money finance
and all of that, it wassomething joint. So when they
traveled, when they traveled andnot already gained ground and
(27:16):
was known, they were like, Okay,now I think it's okay. So they
are fine with that. So now itjust so before we did it was
like a paneling kind of thing,yeah, with the finance and
building up and all of that, youknow, it takes money, right? And
then, so when I went, becauseafter the first year, I had a
training to do with theInternational Institute of
(27:37):
Tropical Agriculture in thesouth, so they called me to do a
training, because they saw allthe energy. They be like, ah, a
young lady, and they like, justcome for this training. So it
was a little bit challenging forme, because I had to stop what I
was doing to to but it was veryimportant, because what I
learned is not it's beyond, it'sbeyond the reach. I really got a
(27:58):
lot from there. So that's aboutthat's about it.
What are you doing? Because, youknow, one of, one of my big
passions is making sure that wekeep farmers sustainable for
themselves. Like we talk a lotabout sustainable growing
practices, which you'redefinitely doing with your soil
(28:18):
building and all that kind ofstuff. And we're talking, we
talk about financialsustainability, which seems like
the farmers are making moremoney off of this papaya, so we
want them.
And so I'm, I'm wondering whatyou're doing to take care of
yourself, so that you'restaying, you know, healthy and
(28:40):
strong, and you're having therest time that you
need.
All right? The first thing is, Iwent growing up, I just I
discovered that it's not aboutit's not about money, it's about
the value you place in people.That's what it makes them.
(29:02):
Because the joy I will tell youthis my experience. I don't
speak based on
books that I've read. What I sayis my experience on ground, in
the field. I can see that evenif I have those two persons who
smile and say, Wow, I'm veryhappy that you bought this idea,
because the money that I'mmaking for me is quite amazing.
(29:24):
And if I have just one personwho says that I don't I fit
organically, the joy that thatit gives me, I tell you, it's,
it's, it gives me the energy.Yeah, I'm so excited when I find
someone like because noteverybody wants to go organic,
okay? But when I introduce thisand I tell them that it's not,
(29:45):
it's less, it's cost effective,yes, what's the issue that you
want to take your money to buythings that will still have all
of these? Because I have tointroduce all of this to them.
And then, meanwhile, you haveall of the you cook, don't you?
They will be like, Yeah, you.
You have biodegradable waste. Sowhat is the problem? Just get
this, get this, get this. Andthis is done, and they be like,
(30:06):
Ah, so when they do it, and theycome back to me, and then they
are happy, and we discuss, welaugh, I just feel so
overwhelmed. And it gives methat, that energy, that okay, I
have to study more. I have tostudy I know that at this level
I really still have to studybecause what I am seeing,
I really have to study tobecause my problem is the
(30:29):
individual to eat healthy, eathealthy, organic food. That is
my that is my problem, and thatis what I know that I'm going to
stop, not entirely, but I knoweven if the small population I'm
going to get is going to beenough for me, so that's a lot
of energy that it gives me.
(30:50):
Yeah,
do you sleep at
night?
Because I will tell you, I amalso, I also tend to be a very
vision driven person, and thatcan be a blessing, and it can be
a curse, because our passionwill take us just so far and let
(31:15):
those bodies, they get old,
okay? And my body has definitelystarted saying, sweetheart, you
mentioned the age of thefarmers, like older, and he said
45 and I'm like, Oh, I'm I'mpast that.
Whoa. We are past that. You'relooking way younger. That's
amazing,
(31:40):
daddy.
I my new best friend. You are mynew best friend.
Wow, amazing. I'm so proud. Wow.Oh, thank you. But in the US,
the average age of our farmersis about 58 and so what you're
talking about, that the theolder generation being the ones
(32:03):
who are carrying on the foodproduction, that that is true
here as well. And so, like my,my concern is that if we burn
our farmers out, then, you know,they might have a whole lot of
passion when they start out. Butif, if we work them too hard and
they're not taking care ofthemselves. We use them up and
(32:25):
then we throw them away. And wedon't want that like we want to
actually make this a sustainable
thing.
People like you are are the samebecause you are.
You are a farmer as well. In thefact that you're you're growing
these plants, you're startingthe seeds, and you are one of
(32:48):
the beginning pieces for thesecommercial farmers. And so, you
know, what can we do to supportyou, to keep you also taking
care of yourself and takingbreaks and, you know,
obviously full of energy. AndI'm like, we want to keep her.
(33:09):
We need
that when you talk like that, Iremember my elder brother, he
would call me like, rest. What'syour problem? You have just take
time and rest because youoverwork yourself. I'm like,
this thing. When you have thisthing your mind, it's like, it's
like, that's the driving force.It keeps you can't sleep. So
you'll be like, Hi, what am Igoing to do? This? My this, my
(33:31):
sister, I just have to look fora person cage you. So you know
you normally, you still sitthere and rest.
I'm not the only one who'slooking at you and saying,
when
you spoke like that, the firstperson that came to mama was
him. I was like, hey, my God,sometimes I do walk out and I
(33:53):
pass out, and I have sometemperatures, and I know what I
need, my body needs is rest. SoI'll be like, because one thing
I've
noticed is my feeding habit. Itdropped because I then lost
appetite. Right now, Idefinitely take a lot of fruits,
(34:13):
and then in the morning I haveto do sports because I don't. I
barely eat. Sometimes it's waypast my breakfast. I'm like, Ah,
it's only 12. I'm not taking mybreakfast. So, yeah, so now I
have to feed the machine
Exactly.
So what I'm doing right now ispushing myself to be I have a
(34:36):
timer when once is that time,I'll have to go and ache. You
see, I eat more, more fruits andvegetable and then for my rest,
I take like, six hours a day. So
I'm working on that for now. Oh,sweetheart.
Since the time I was I don'tknow, I can't even remember, I
(34:59):
am an.
Nine hours sleep, sleeper like,if I get nine hours, I am a
happy, happy woman, and everyhour you take away from me, from
that I get.
So by the time I get hit sixhours, I'm like, three hours
short, and I'm starting to belike
(35:21):
a lot of people like, I've got afriend who, if she gets six
hours a night, she feels great,and she has a lot of your
energy. So it could be one ofthose. You know, there are
personalities that just have allof that energy and
just love it. But I love thatyou set alarms to remind you to
do self care, because I thinkthat's a really important thing.
(35:43):
Like, when we are passionateabout what we're doing, or,
like, farmers are the same way,you know, you have a lot of work
to do. There's no doubt. So ifyou're out there and you're
committed to doing the work, youknow, my my sister always quotes
my grandfather, who's like, thejob's not finished yet. We're
not stopping until the job'sdone. And there's a beauty in
(36:08):
that, like, okay, good, youknow, you're going to keep
going, and at the same time youneed to eat, you need to rest,
and so setting that timer andsaying, No, for this half hour,
I am going to stop. I am goingto eat. I am going to breathe
deeply, look around at thisbeautiful thing that I'm doing.
(36:30):
I'm going to maybe talk topeople just about like nothing,
just just sit and chat for thesake of having a fun
conversation. I'm gonna laugh.Yeah, you know, laughter, great
thing for us.
I do a lot of laughing. Um,
I see that
(36:52):
way younger, way way younger.
See, you want to take 10 yearsoff your life?
You'll 20 years younger, mygoodness,
younger college. I think
(37:17):
that's so great that you'redoing that. And it also sounds
like you're recognizing whenyour body's having too much. So
you said, then you'll get, like,feet if you're which we don't
want you to be running feversbefore you do that, but figuring
out, like, those warning signsthat when our body is telling
us, like, I always tell peopleif I just want to sit down and
(37:39):
watch like Chinese movies allthe time, which is funny,
because I don't speak Chinese,but I kind of got suckered into
these Chinese dramas, andthey're very silly
I can, like, escape from mywhole life. So I know that if I
want to watch them all day,something's not right, like I
need to back up and I need tostart
(38:01):
I don't want to spend all daywatching TV. I want to be
working. I want to be doing thejob that I love. So when, when
my system starts to say, justhang out on the couch. And I
know that there's problems so,but I use that now as a litmus
test, because I say, okay, sowhat do I need to adjust? Like,
am I too busy. Do I need to dosome journaling and figure out,
(38:23):
you know, am I? Am I holdingsome stress somewhere? Do I need
to go for a hike with a friend?Like, what do I need to do? So,
what else do you do for stressrelief? I'm curious. You have,
oh
yes,
singing,
yes. And I love to cook. I loveto cook. So I have, I love, I
(38:45):
have some particular delicacythat I love cooking. So if I'm
not cooking, I'm listening tomusic and one one, so that
sometimes when I'm cooking, Ilisten to music, or when I want
to really relax, I just have my,my some, some special, soft Jan,
very soft. Yes, I realized, andit feels very good, like my my
(39:07):
entire body being energized. Soif I'm not cooking, then I am
listening to music or I'msinging. So those are the ways,
so I can have a stroll, like itjust goes up towards this. This
one nice, cool environment, justchecking how beautiful the
nature is and all of that, yeah,oh, I love that. So before,
(39:28):
before I let you go, though thishas been so much fun, thank you
for joining
us, and
we're gonna have to We didn'teven talk about your tea like
you mentioned the mint. You saidyou were growing it. So we're
going to have to have you comeon again. You're going to have
to talk about tea sometime.We'll we'll give you a couple
(39:48):
weeks.
That's fine. But I always askpeople before they leave if they
had one thing that they thoughtfarmers should know what.
That be. So what would, whatwould your your word of wisdom
for farmers be?
Okay? What I'm going to say is,you know, I'm saying it's not
(40:10):
something generalized to theentire farmers. I'm talking
about the African farmers. Sowhat I think is that they should
definitely be going fortrainings, okay,
educational opportunities, okay,empowering themselves because
they are too Adamic. They want,they don't. They don't want
(40:35):
something new.
They should. They should befree, open up and even try to
try new things, because Ibelieve, I believe that the one
that is within you shows you andgives you beautiful ideas that
you yourself. You can be amazed.Because sometimes when I look at
some some produce, I'm like, howthis person come about, this
(40:56):
concept, there's some someoneguided them through. Why? Why
Why not yourself? You can alsobe, be that person. So open up
and don't, don't be too finetuned that okay, this is the
way. This is the path they mustgo, like this at this No, just
be open and go for trainings.Because whenever we go for
trainings and workshop, you meetpeople with different energies
(41:17):
when they bring their ideas inbreaking something in you. So I
think that is just what I haveto share.
I love that. And I'm gonna say Idon't think that that applies
just to African farmers. Ireally don't. I think that that
concept is important for allfarmers, because I think, I
(41:39):
think all of us can get kind ofstuck in the way it's always
been done, you know, especiallyif you, if you're a multi
generational farmer, you know,if your parents did it and your
grandparents did it and yourgreat grandparents did it like
we're beef farmers, that's allwe do. We do beef or we're,
we're dairy farmers, or we'reapple growers, or whatever it
(42:00):
is, and yeah, and we've alwaysdone it this way, and if you
limit yourself to that, you'reabsolutely right, like we lose
so much opportunity that wedon't even know is there. And so
I, I really love that idea. Youknow, you're talking about
following that spirit withinside of you that that wisdom
(42:21):
and guidance that comes from,you know, where you're sitting
there and you're listening
springs from, yeah, yeah. And totrust that, and to trust that,
if you have an idea and it seemslike a crazy idea, it's okay,
and that's probably the rightthing to be doing. Because Thank
(42:43):
you. Thank you.
Thank you.
When, when I told people I wasgoing to work with farmers to
help support their overall well,being like, I don't know if
you're going to be able to dothat. And I was like, you know,
I fought with myself for sixmonths. I was like, this is,
this is not reasonable. Like,farmers aren't going to want to
(43:06):
do this. And finally, you weretalking about God giving you
your calling. Finally, God waslike,
This is what you're supposed tobe doing, and it's where my
passion is. I'm like, this is, Ilove farmers.
We want to do that, and we wantto exactly through, like the
(43:27):
farming has to be this way orthat way, like break all these
boundaries, because there was atime where farming was something
that everybody did on asubsistence level in their
backyard, and nobody looked downon that as, oh, that's, of
course, it was real farming, andwe started out in the garden,
(43:48):
for crying out loud, God, puttwo people in A garden and said,
So let's, let's embrace that andrelease all this judgment that
we're holding on to that is iscrippling us as as people, as
(44:09):
growers. I'm like, so full ofinspiration right now.
Yay.
So so thank you for sharingthat, because I really do think
that that's important for all ofus. I think all of us really
need to embrace who it is thatwe were created to be, and to
let that, let that flourish.Because I believe that we all
(44:32):
have a purpose here that only wecan do. And you know, people are
going to find help where theyneed help, but if we didn't have
medefo,
all the farmers that you'veworked with so far would have
been lacking something very,very important. And if we didn't
have K we'd be missing a littlemore laughter in the world.
(44:54):
That's right. Yeah.
But I want to, I just want tothank you so much. It has been
so much fun, and I look forwardto keeping up with you. You
know, after, after this episodeand and go, go forth and have a
friend. Thank you so much. Case,it was amazing, just an amazing
(45:16):
time. I so much. Enjoy myself
just just hearing, just justseeing how someone wants to hear
that story. You want to shareit, and it is not something that
you're faking. You're trying toshare with you. I feel the
energy like relating is not likeyour year, but I feel like I'm
relating with you one on one. Soit's just so beautiful. Thank
you so much.
(45:38):
Thank you.
A
great night. Alright, thank youso much. Bye
farm. What's calling our showsopen, goodbye, farewell, so
long. I do see you next week.Same time, same place for food,
flowers and fun. Go in peace.
(46:02):
Visit us atwww.penlightfarmers.com
you.
How can an openness to newthings transform your farm life?
Join Cameroonian Papaya FarmerMedefo Talom to find out on this
week's episode of Food, Flowers,and Fun: Visits with farm women
around the world. We aresponsored by Pen Light for
Farmers (00:17):
helping overworked farm women create the farm lives of
greater purpose, energy andpeace that they've always
wanted.
If you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
(00:40):
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you.
How do
you get away from the cares ofthe day? Restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed, stock. Chatwith women around the world to
raise food, flowers and fun withyour host, K Castrataro, that's
(01:04):
me.
Well, hello everybody, andwelcome to this edition of food,
flowers and fun. This is apodcast where we talk to women,
farmers and farmer supportpeople around the world. I am
your host, K Castrataro, and Iam so excited today to introduce
(01:25):
Medefo Talom Sandrine, who isfrom Cameroon, and she's just
got an amazing story of how shesupports farmers and her growth
into this whole agriculturalbusiness, and then to talk about
some of the struggles she seesin agriculture and for women in
(01:46):
the circle. So welcome. Talom...Medefo,
thank you so much.
Thank you so much. I'm verydelighted being here with you.
It's a pleasure.
So I'm wondering if you want tojust start and and tell us how
(02:07):
you got into agriculture becauseyou didn't grow up in a farming
family. No.
Okay, thank you again. Oncemore.
Okay, let's start. Soagriculture, to me, has always
been a passion. And how didthat? How did I get that all in
one wrapped up, I think it cameas a God given purpose to me,
(02:31):
because I've never had abackground of like family
members, nobody, nobody in mylineage is a farmer. But while
cutting across high school, Ijust had this within me, because
I felt that what was thenecessary like, what is really
necessary in in my country,Cameroon. So I saw that food is
(02:56):
something that you can reallyget everybody involved, because
everybody eats, and I wanted toget No, that's right. And
unfortunately, in so many partsof our world, and probably in
many parts of Cameroon, noteverybody eats on a regular
basis. And so this food securitya very important cause. Yeah, I
(03:16):
agree 100%
Yeah. So, so I stole myself,looking, looking, looking
around. I found no youths. Soit's like the farming thing was
mostly carried out by all people
from 45 and above. Meanwhile,the youths, nobody want to get
involved in agriculture. Belike, But meanwhile, everybody
(03:39):
eat. So he was like. I askedmyself, so this thing, How
sustainable is it going to be ifus the youth don't want to get
involved in agriculture? Andthen I started doing research,
and I I saw that something burstout from within. I'm like, Okay,
I'm going to do it was reallytough from the start that I
believe that if something is notthat tough, it's not meant for
(04:00):
me. So I told
myself something and similar,that there's, there's always the
easy way to do things, and thenthe harder exactly do. I always
gravitate to the hard one,
yeah.
And, and then I said, Okay, Istarted making inquiries, asking
people, and they were like, whywould you want to choose
(04:22):
agriculture of all fields? I'mlike, This is what I want to do.
Just give me, just tell me whatyou think about. So I was going
about to get mentors. And somepeople, they were wild. They
were marveled, like, oh, wow,young lady like this with this
kind of Brazil. So that's how Iwent to the University that
studied agriculture. I wrote theconcu, and I passed it. And of
course, I saw myself in schooldoing agriculture, and they
(04:45):
train us how to go places, howto farm, all of that. It was
very strenuous, but I hadalready said it. I see this my
side. I was a little bit fatter.And when I started, when I
started schooling, I saw how Ireduced the.
Was we started school, I think6am to about 7pm I was not used
to that. No, no. And, man, Igotta know, like ag students, I
(05:10):
don't think in the United Statesthat's, that's the way they do
ag training. I
think they necessarily do six toseven. They take classes. They
might do some Yes,
it was a two way thing, storyand practical. And because I had
never known anything aboutagriculture, I saw majority of
(05:31):
my classmates. They weigh fasterthan me, because now we are
missing the story. After that,you have sticks to the farm. So
when we go to the family, yousee me spending a lot of time
because I was trying to catchup, I was trying to read, I was
trying to find out. I would justwant to turn and I will see some
people already write. Their bedswere already done. They've
already planted that. I'm like,Ah God, please help me on this
(05:51):
one. And of course, to cut thelong story short, I I forced
myself I have to study. I haveto double it, because I know
okay, I'm I don't have any clueon what I'm doing, so I had to
force myself to study hard.Double, in fact, triple, did
research, went to the Ministryof Agriculture, had some and how
God does His things. Startedsending me people that gave me
(06:13):
guidance. They really helped me,and I came out with flying
colors. Grace, all glory to God.And you know what you
want to say, practice, makesperfect. I didn't just want to
leave school and then I go tomaybe work in offices. Or I
wanted to be practical aboutagriculture. I wanted
(06:35):
to meet, yep, yes. I put my handin the dead and I showed him
that. Okay, this is what we aredoing. This what you have, we've
learned, and this is what we'retrying to incorporate. How can
we change? How can wefacilitate? How can we add your
yield? That's that. Those weremy my problems. Because when I
go to the farm, I see how theythey are, they strain to farm.
They will sit in the farm forus, and then at the end, you
(06:57):
want to get the benefits.Because the difference actually
between those who go to schooldoing agriculture is that you
can actually, you have all yourrecords, you follow it up and
you know, okay, this is mybenefit. This is what I'm
having. So you have all of that.But with our parents, they don't
really care about that. Theyjust know that, okay, I'm going
to the farm, and at the end Isell if I have 100 friends, so
(07:18):
they don't even know if they'remaking profit or not. Yeah, but
it has to come in. I had tofollow up and tell you now,
okay, now, okay, this is how wehave to do. If you check and
check, you see that, Okay,finally, are you doing? Are you
making again or not? And I sawmany changes. I even know some
people were very adamant tochange. We're like, no, no. This
house. We've been doing itbefore. So, so I had to live
with them and all of that. So Ididn't have a lot, like, a very
(07:40):
big space to to start doing
like large, large scaleproduction. So that's why I had
to come up with a nursery that Icould be able to supply seats
and ceilings. That's how I gotin contact with many farmers,
because everybody needs seeds,right? You can
a little bit. I'm gonna jump inand you know your your passion
(08:02):
for seeds and seedlings issomething that I just, I really
enjoyed hearing about. And sotalk to us about about how you
realized that that was the placethat you could really start to
make a difference for farmers.Okay, fine. The first thing is,
I discovered that the problemthat every farmer has is the
(08:27):
quality of seeds. Because whenyour seed is being tampered,
definitely your produce istampered. So it starts with the
seed. If you don't have
a very good seed, high yieldingseed, or resistant seed,
definitely your whatever you'redoing, is going to go in vain,
(08:50):
or you're going to have littleor no produce. So that's the
primary focus, you see. So Ithen said, I have to go into the
root of this. Let's start. Let'sgo to the start of all this
matter. That's why I had to nowsay, Okay, let me get to the
seeds, or the seedings. So I gotfarmers, different farmers, and
big producers of seeds. Okay,then I had to now, you ask me,
(09:15):
why is that excellent papaya.Your
family, and papaya.
Okay, the main reason is that Imy mom. My mom, she's of late,
like now she's, I think fiveyears ago she passed, she she's,
she's a lover of papaya. So thespacey that I'm doing is Kalina
(09:40):
dwarf, specie, okay, so she, shewas a lover of papaya, and when
she died, just when we buriedher, and on her grave, about
three months later, we saw apapaya germinated, germinating
from her head, like the sidewhere she was laid. So I was
like, Oh, is this?
You, is he telling me something?So maybe should I? Should I?
(10:02):
Because I wanted to tell you,see, that I didn't know which
particular one I was seeingbetween you, see, so when that
happened, I was like, Okay, I'mgoing to go for this. So I
started off, and the journey hasbeen amazing. Even with a lot
with the challenges that wehave, I always have people that
always like, Okay, let's trythis. Let's try this. And I'm
someone who never gives up ifthere's if
(10:24):
I know that there's always away, even if it's not working, I
just have to retry and try andtry it's going to be perfect. So
that's the story I love. I lovethat attitude. First of all,
like that, this whole mindsetthing is something that I've
really, really grabbed onto inthe last year or so, and and you
really can change so much aboutyour condition just by having a
(10:48):
positive mindset and that, thatbelief that no, there is a way
to do this. I don't, I don'tknow what it is yet, but I'm
going to find it like, that's,that's the mindset that has
changed the world throughouthistory. That's that's the
mindset that, you know, had theWright Brothers flying and it,
you know, has Edison and ventingthe light bulb and all of these
(11:10):
kinds of things. Because theysaid, I don't know how, but it
happens.
Start dealing with papayaseedlings. So where were you
collecting the seed from? Wereyou getting it from commercial
growers? Were you getting itfrom seed companies? How did you
get started doing that?
Okay, initially, I got it fromcommercial
(11:35):
producers, and then I had, I hadone training. We had
an empowering session one timewith the Mina there. So I met
some seed producers there. Weexchanged contacts, like
networking, and then Idiscovered the because with what
(11:55):
they it was satisfied. So Ireally got encouraged. And then
they started supplying me theseeds. And then I discovered
that giving because the timing,given the timing to plant the
seeds, farmers are not veryconscious with time. So that's
the reason why I had tointroduce the nursery. So we
have to, because when you'redoing a nursery, takes about two
(12:18):
months or six to seven weeks. Soby the time they're doing other
activities in the farm, beforethey want to know it's already
the time to plan papaya, andthey have not yet nested.
By the time they want to nurseis already about almost to the
end of the planting season. So Ihad to come in to do the
(12:39):
nursery, and then I nurse, andthen I sell to them the next
seedlings. Okay, so thedifference between the seed and
the ceiling, because I do theseeds, the ceilings and the pre
germinated seeds, okay, based onthe distances. So there are some
people that are encouraged. Ifthey are very far, I send the
seats themselves. There's a waywe do all the packaging so that
(13:02):
it gets them in the right shape,and then we send and then we now
give them directive on how to goabout that
if the distance is very long,like across rivers and seas and
all of that, because it'scarrying the difficulty with the
ceilings is, it is it is thatit's a little bit heavy,
(13:22):
especially when you're taking,like, from 1000 it's quite
heavy. I have to stay into verylong distances. That's the
reason why I had to initiate theidea. All these things didn't
just come at once. I did it bitby bit. And when I saw this view
cuts, I was like, how am I goingto break break through this one?
And now I'm talking about thisis not that it just came like
(13:43):
that. So these are, I've beendoing this like for three years.
Okay? I've been having courses,and then I'm trying to, then
I'll sit back to say, Okay, howare you going to do this?
Because now what I want to workon is, is the, the the the
one second, let me, let me getone of the ceilings so you can
see, all right, sure. Okay, sothere we go. Oh,
(14:06):
see this. This is one of it.This is one, can you see that?
So this is a lot like a maple, amaple lobes,
but it's, oh, it's reallybeautiful.
I
Okay, so this is, this is theKalina spacey, the dwarf Kalina
(14:29):
is quite, very short. It takesfrom between seven to nine
months today. Okay, so this ishow, this is what we talk about,
a ceiling. This is one. One ofthese is 1000 France. We're
going to convey that to yourdollars. So this is this is it
so and, and I also do tea. Thisis the mint tea. This is the
(14:49):
means.
So you see, I also do theseedlings as well, and also
stevia, yeah. So I'm trying tointroduce now teas, because.
Is raining, season is cold, somy my difficulty right now, my
difficulty right now. It's, yousee the back? You see the
plastic bag, right? Yes, here isa soil. This soil. I made the
(15:13):
soil myself. Because I doorganic I mix
organic soil, like the soil, ifyou see like, let me show you my
hands. I'm going to show youthat I love this.
So you see this is, yeah, thisis dark because it is my
composition. So I as well dotraining on how to compose,
(15:34):
because this soil, it takes justthree days to germinate, three
days because it's really rich,really the mixture, yeah, it's
really rich. So I also dotraining for farmers to get best
soil compositions using organicmeans, even their waste in the
in the kitchens, just just somany things involved. So my main
(15:54):
difficulty right now that I'mtrying to get is to reduce this
soil in a way that we can havewe can send even 1000 without
having too much weight, becausejust this one you can, it can be
like about 0.252
0.2
or 0.3 or four kg, just likethis. So you're, you're
(16:15):
basically, you're the cost tothe farmers is coming from the
weight of the soil. It's notcoming from the plants
themselves. It's so if youcould, yeah, that you could
reduce expenses Exactly.
So I really want to reduce andthe weight itself, the weight,
because if you see all of these,because you have the soil that
(16:36):
I've mixed here, you have thisplastic bags, and you have the
seat. So this is doing one thatwe're giving out. Yeah, okay,
and how far do you ship them?
Um, I don't, I don't know howI'm going to measure the
distance, because I'm using itbased in Cameroon. I'm still
doing local
language here. This is why
(16:59):
we're
talking
Sure.
Okay, so about 5000 about 5000kilometers, okay, 5000 10,000
kilometers, yeah, it depends onhow, how far you are. So that's,
I'm saying that that's why weare doing the seeds, the pre
(17:22):
germinated seeds, and theceilings, for those, for those
around where we are, we we givethe ceilings, right? But when
you're way, way far off, theywill give you the seeds, or the
pre germinated seeds. I don'thave them here because,
wait one one second I haveseeds, but I don't have the
pigeons.
(17:46):
I love it.
So this is the seed. I don'tknow we're going to see that.
Let me just get one. So this isa seed. Oh, look at it. It's so
tiny. Yeah, so tiny. And how?How tall do the papaya plants
get your dwarf plants.
It is about, it's not, it'sabout two, not two meters, even
(18:09):
one, one meter five, 1.5 Yeah,
just like, like, quite short,anybody? Oh, sorry, are they an
annual plant, or are theyperennials? So like, do they do
they bear year after year? OrYes, year after year for four
years after years, for fouryears. Okay, alright, so it's
(18:32):
kind of a mid it's like amidterm plant. So it's not yes,
but it's not like an apple treethat you can Yeah, exactly. It's
in
between, alright, yeah. And thenwe have to, we have to get that
up after like four years,because when you're doing it for
commercial reasons, yeah, okay,you have to carry because the
(18:52):
production rate reduces for thefirst year you can have about 20
fruits on in a tree, 20 fruits.The second year you can have
about 18 so it reduces as theyear years, all right? So it
reduces from the first year on.So the first year is actually
the highest production, yes,yes. Okay, so that that takes a
(19:12):
lot of management for for thefarmers to make sure that
they've got a good, steady, uh,replacement system going on. So
you must Yes, yes, you must be aperson.
Of course.
It's quite amazing. It's quiteamazing. Working with farmers is
(19:34):
really tedious, because you haveto explain and explain and
explain again, and someone belike, no, just hold on. We're
going to see how we're going toget to this particular point.
But then it's working. It'sactually because now I can
really boost that the farmersthat I work with have really
seen results. Having you'rehaving great success with the
(19:55):
with the farmers tell becausewere you, have you been working.
Working with existing papayafarmers, or have you been
convincing farmers to switchfrom a different crop to papaya?
Okay,
that's why the entire process isa little bit difficult, because
I started with convincingfarmers to swap together, and
(20:19):
then I had to show them theadvantages why we are planting
this particular specie. Okay, sonow what I'm doing is that the
people who got it the first yearnow the other people now see the
results. That's why we have moreclients now. We have more
farmers diving into it. But thefirst year was it wasn't really
easy, even though, when I showyou the fruit. You it's very
(20:41):
appetizing. I really, is itreally, am I really setting out
like, yes, because I plantedone, I tried myself, but I'm
bringing it to you. I don't justsay something like, oh, okay,
this is it in the blues. No. So,so, so you've had some success
with your first year farmers
(21:02):
tell me what that success lookedlike for you. Was it increased
yield? Was it higher quality?Was it all of the above? What
was it that they really loveabout your plants? Both? The
first thing is the the qualityof the seeds. It was excellent
because it was diseaseresistant, resistance. You
didn't You didn't have to do alot
(21:23):
to prevent it from pests or allof these insects. So the first
thing is, it was really diseaseresistant. Secondly, it's the
fruits are really big
and they yield as well. Okay, soI need the space see that I talk
about the Kalina dwarf specie.It's quite short in a way that
(21:44):
harvesting is very easy. Youknow, the normal papaya tree is
really tall.
To harvest it, you really haveto take your time, because there
are also techniques inharvesting, okay, but with this
one, I don't even strain ingiving lessons on how to harvest
your fruit, because it's just,it's almost your height. It's
(22:05):
almost your height. There aresome that you are way taller
than, so you just have to pluckit out. So you're saying that
the so the plants are areshorter, and they're like, so no
ladders. You don't need to doladders. You don't need any
other equipment to beharvesting. You can just harvest
exactly right on the ground. Soit is a lot like apple trees,
where the standard apple treeswere, like, 20 or 30 feet tall,
(22:28):
and you did ladders, and it wassuch a pain. And now you can do
the dwarfs, and you can, youknow, trellis, them walk on the
side, and they're all like theapples are just
exactly papaya is Ah, now, doyou have to stake the papayas?
Are they? Do they have to betrellised? Or are they strong
(22:48):
enough to stand on their own?They are strong enough this one
is very easy to deal with.That's why we have many people
wanting it. And then I told youabout what we introduced this
year, because each year I'mtrying to add value. Like, okay,
what can we do? What can we addso that we can so this year I, I
involved everyone. So I wasdoing an operation, one home,
one football. Because when Iintroduced you the purport, I'll
(23:10):
have to talk. I i can get asmall group, I get a contact
person, then I get a group ofmaybe house heads, then I talk
about it. You can you, youeverybody seem interested?
Definitely, if I have 50 personsin the crowd, about 49 we want,
we want the Kalina forthemselves.
So after that, I will now,because the truth is, people are
(23:33):
scared to go into theagriculture because there's
nobody to to give them directiveon how to do it. But I am there.
You get the you get theceilings, the soil. I have soil
prepared. If you want me toteach you how to prepare your
soil, I definitely do. I dofollow ups until you have your
your fruits, in your in your inyour backyard, or maybe your
farms. Yeah, so that the entireidea is just amazing. That's why
(23:57):
I'm I was like, God, thank Youfor this idea. Yeah, many people
love eating papaya, because whenI did a survey, I found out that
about 89% of the population eatspapaya, and they love it. But
now the prices have skyrocket.Is very expensive in the market
right now, so everybody wants toplan at least two in their
compound. Okay, and so have youfound that some I'm sorry I
(24:22):
jumped right in. And we do havea have a lag, so I sometimes
don't pause enough to let thesound
travel from here back toCameroon.
But I'm curious, do any have anyof your backyard growers? So the
people who've got one or twotrees, have they decided to
(24:42):
start selling it as well? Or dothey are they basically using it
for home use right now? I thinkno, nobody wants to sell they I
have some people that planted itat their backyard, then later
on, since they saw that, theresult was good, they now want
to go in to do it. Come.
Charlie like they want to getfarms to plant because the
(25:04):
papaya as well is very sweet andit's thick. I actually this year
I had to plant some in my farmbecause I don't have a very big
space.
The reasons why I had to do thenursery to try to ecommize with
the space and get more of theseedings right, because the
planting distance for it is twometers by two meters. So that's
(25:24):
a lot of space to cost away.Yeah. So in a hectare, you have
about 2500 plants, you see. Sothat's a lot, a big space, and I
don't have that. So I plantedabout 20 or 30 like that in my
in my small farm, so that I'llbe able to also show, this time
around, I'm going to show, I'mgoing, I'm not just going to
talk about this and my phone inmy farm or call someone who has
(25:48):
planted it. I'm going to say,Okay, this is my farm seed for
yourself. So, yeah, I have, Ihave targets for every year,
like, okay, next year, what am Igoing to do? Because next year
I'm going to add something. I'mjust going to add and add and
add. We keep going.
I'm going. This was a beautifulsegue. So add and add an ad. So
(26:09):
here we have, here we havemadefo, who is just like a ball
of energy and inspiration.
What do you do to keep yourselffull of that inspiration and
energy. Because, you know, youjust started a new business, and
it's only been two years, right?Yes, yes, the first year, am I
(26:30):
right? You grew like 20,000
seedlings. Is that? Is that whati Yes, so that was like a lot
for a first year and and howmany people do you have working
with you?
I have just two people workingwith me,
three of you. It's three of youtaking care of us. But I had two
(26:53):
other people like who partneredwith me to do the business. So
the first year, I had somepartners. We worked together. So
the I was doing the 2000 becausewe were three of us, even though
I do, I did my all the sales, Idid it, but the money finance
and all of that, it wassomething joint. So when they
traveled, when they traveled andnot already gained ground and
(27:16):
was known, they were like, Okay,now I think it's okay. So they
are fine with that. So now itjust so before we did it was
like a paneling kind of thing,yeah, with the finance and
building up and all of that, youknow, it takes money, right? And
then, so when I went, becauseafter the first year, I had a
training to do with theInternational Institute of
(27:37):
Tropical Agriculture in thesouth, so they called me to do a
training, because they saw allthe energy. They be like, ah, a
young lady, and they like, justcome for this training. So it
was a little bit challenging forme, because I had to stop what I
was doing to to but it was veryimportant, because what I
learned is not it's beyond, it'sbeyond the reach. I really got a
(27:58):
lot from there. So that's aboutthat's about it.
What are you doing? Because, youknow, one of, one of my big
passions is making sure that wekeep farmers sustainable for
themselves. Like we talk a lotabout sustainable growing
practices, which you'redefinitely doing with your soil
(28:18):
building and all that kind ofstuff. And we're talking, we
talk about financialsustainability, which seems like
the farmers are making moremoney off of this papaya, so we
want them.
And so I'm, I'm wondering whatyou're doing to take care of
yourself, so that you'restaying, you know, healthy and
(28:40):
strong, and you're having therest time that you
need.
All right? The first thing is, Iwent growing up, I just I
discovered that it's not aboutit's not about money, it's about
the value you place in people.That's what it makes them.
(29:02):
Because the joy I will tell youthis my experience. I don't
speak based on
books that I've read. What I sayis my experience on ground, in
the field. I can see that evenif I have those two persons who
smile and say, Wow, I'm veryhappy that you bought this idea,
because the money that I'mmaking for me is quite amazing.
(29:24):
And if I have just one personwho says that I don't I fit
organically, the joy that thatit gives me, I tell you, it's,
it's, it gives me the energy.Yeah, I'm so excited when I find
someone like because noteverybody wants to go organic,
okay? But when I introduce thisand I tell them that it's not,
(29:45):
it's less, it's cost effective,yes, what's the issue that you
want to take your money to buythings that will still have all
of these? Because I have tointroduce all of this to them.
And then, meanwhile, you haveall of the you cook, don't you?
They will be like, Yeah, you.
You have biodegradable waste. Sowhat is the problem? Just get
this, get this, get this. Andthis is done, and they be like,
(30:06):
Ah, so when they do it, and theycome back to me, and then they
are happy, and we discuss, welaugh, I just feel so
overwhelmed. And it gives methat, that energy, that okay, I
have to study more. I have tostudy I know that at this level
I really still have to studybecause what I am seeing,
I really have to study tobecause my problem is the
(30:29):
individual to eat healthy, eathealthy, organic food. That is
my that is my problem, and thatis what I know that I'm going to
stop, not entirely, but I knoweven if the small population I'm
going to get is going to beenough for me, so that's a lot
of energy that it gives me.
(30:50):
Yeah,
do you sleep at
night?
Because I will tell you, I amalso, I also tend to be a very
vision driven person, and thatcan be a blessing, and it can be
a curse, because our passionwill take us just so far and let
(31:15):
those bodies, they get old,
okay? And my body has definitelystarted saying, sweetheart, you
mentioned the age of thefarmers, like older, and he said
45 and I'm like, Oh, I'm I'mpast that.
Whoa. We are past that. You'relooking way younger. That's
amazing,
(31:40):
daddy.
I my new best friend. You are mynew best friend.
Wow, amazing. I'm so proud. Wow.Oh, thank you. But in the US,
the average age of our farmersis about 58 and so what you're
talking about, that the theolder generation being the ones
(32:03):
who are carrying on the foodproduction, that that is true
here as well. And so, like my,my concern is that if we burn
our farmers out, then, you know,they might have a whole lot of
passion when they start out. Butif, if we work them too hard and
they're not taking care ofthemselves. We use them up and
(32:25):
then we throw them away. And wedon't want that like we want to
actually make this a sustainable
thing.
People like you are are the samebecause you are.
You are a farmer as well. In thefact that you're you're growing
these plants, you're startingthe seeds, and you are one of
(32:48):
the beginning pieces for thesecommercial farmers. And so, you
know, what can we do to supportyou, to keep you also taking
care of yourself and takingbreaks and, you know,
obviously full of energy. AndI'm like, we want to keep her.
(33:09):
We need
that when you talk like that, Iremember my elder brother, he
would call me like, rest. What'syour problem? You have just take
time and rest because youoverwork yourself. I'm like,
this thing. When you have thisthing your mind, it's like, it's
like, that's the driving force.It keeps you can't sleep. So
you'll be like, Hi, what am Igoing to do? This? My this, my
(33:31):
sister, I just have to look fora person cage you. So you know
you normally, you still sitthere and rest.
I'm not the only one who'slooking at you and saying,
when
you spoke like that, the firstperson that came to mama was
him. I was like, hey, my God,sometimes I do walk out and I
(33:53):
pass out, and I have sometemperatures, and I know what I
need, my body needs is rest. SoI'll be like, because one thing
I've
noticed is my feeding habit. Itdropped because I then lost
appetite. Right now, Idefinitely take a lot of fruits,
(34:13):
and then in the morning I haveto do sports because I don't. I
barely eat. Sometimes it's waypast my breakfast. I'm like, Ah,
it's only 12. I'm not taking mybreakfast. So, yeah, so now I
have to feed the machine
Exactly.
So what I'm doing right now ispushing myself to be I have a
(34:36):
timer when once is that time,I'll have to go and ache. You
see, I eat more, more fruits andvegetable and then for my rest,
I take like, six hours a day. So
I'm working on that for now. Oh,sweetheart.
Since the time I was I don'tknow, I can't even remember, I
(34:59):
am an.
Nine hours sleep, sleeper like,if I get nine hours, I am a
happy, happy woman, and everyhour you take away from me, from
that I get.
So by the time I get hit sixhours, I'm like, three hours
short, and I'm starting to belike
(35:21):
a lot of people like, I've got afriend who, if she gets six
hours a night, she feels great,and she has a lot of your
energy. So it could be one ofthose. You know, there are
personalities that just have allof that energy and
just love it. But I love thatyou set alarms to remind you to
do self care, because I thinkthat's a really important thing.
(35:43):
Like, when we are passionateabout what we're doing, or,
like, farmers are the same way,you know, you have a lot of work
to do. There's no doubt. So ifyou're out there and you're
committed to doing the work, youknow, my my sister always quotes
my grandfather, who's like, thejob's not finished yet. We're
not stopping until the job'sdone. And there's a beauty in
(36:08):
that, like, okay, good, youknow, you're going to keep
going, and at the same time youneed to eat, you need to rest,
and so setting that timer andsaying, No, for this half hour,
I am going to stop. I am goingto eat. I am going to breathe
deeply, look around at thisbeautiful thing that I'm doing.
(36:30):
I'm going to maybe talk topeople just about like nothing,
just just sit and chat for thesake of having a fun
conversation. I'm gonna laugh.Yeah, you know, laughter, great
thing for us.
I do a lot of laughing. Um,
I see that
(36:52):
way younger, way way younger.
See, you want to take 10 yearsoff your life?
You'll 20 years younger, mygoodness,
younger college. I think
(37:17):
that's so great that you'redoing that. And it also sounds
like you're recognizing whenyour body's having too much. So
you said, then you'll get, like,feet if you're which we don't
want you to be running feversbefore you do that, but figuring
out, like, those warning signsthat when our body is telling
us, like, I always tell peopleif I just want to sit down and
(37:39):
watch like Chinese movies allthe time, which is funny,
because I don't speak Chinese,but I kind of got suckered into
these Chinese dramas, andthey're very silly
I can, like, escape from mywhole life. So I know that if I
want to watch them all day,something's not right, like I
need to back up and I need tostart
(38:01):
I don't want to spend all daywatching TV. I want to be
working. I want to be doing thejob that I love. So when, when
my system starts to say, justhang out on the couch. And I
know that there's problems so,but I use that now as a litmus
test, because I say, okay, sowhat do I need to adjust? Like,
am I too busy. Do I need to dosome journaling and figure out,
(38:23):
you know, am I? Am I holdingsome stress somewhere? Do I need
to go for a hike with a friend?Like, what do I need to do? So,
what else do you do for stressrelief? I'm curious. You have,
oh
yes,
singing,
yes. And I love to cook. I loveto cook. So I have, I love, I
(38:45):
have some particular delicacythat I love cooking. So if I'm
not cooking, I'm listening tomusic and one one, so that
sometimes when I'm cooking, Ilisten to music, or when I want
to really relax, I just have my,my some, some special, soft Jan,
very soft. Yes, I realized, andit feels very good, like my my
(39:07):
entire body being energized. Soif I'm not cooking, then I am
listening to music or I'msinging. So those are the ways,
so I can have a stroll, like itjust goes up towards this. This
one nice, cool environment, justchecking how beautiful the
nature is and all of that, yeah,oh, I love that. So before,
(39:28):
before I let you go, though thishas been so much fun, thank you
for joining
us, and
we're gonna have to We didn'teven talk about your tea like
you mentioned the mint. You saidyou were growing it. So we're
going to have to have you comeon again. You're going to have
to talk about tea sometime.We'll we'll give you a couple
(39:48):
weeks.
That's fine. But I always askpeople before they leave if they
had one thing that they thoughtfarmers should know what.
That be. So what would, whatwould your your word of wisdom
for farmers be?
Okay? What I'm going to say is,you know, I'm saying it's not
(40:10):
something generalized to theentire farmers. I'm talking
about the African farmers. Sowhat I think is that they should
definitely be going fortrainings, okay,
educational opportunities, okay,empowering themselves because
they are too Adamic. They want,they don't. They don't want
(40:35):
something new.
They should. They should befree, open up and even try to
try new things, because Ibelieve, I believe that the one
that is within you shows you andgives you beautiful ideas that
you yourself. You can be amazed.Because sometimes when I look at
some some produce, I'm like, howthis person come about, this
(40:56):
concept, there's some someoneguided them through. Why? Why
Why not yourself? You can alsobe, be that person. So open up
and don't, don't be too finetuned that okay, this is the
way. This is the path they mustgo, like this at this No, just
be open and go for trainings.Because whenever we go for
trainings and workshop, you meetpeople with different energies
(41:17):
when they bring their ideas inbreaking something in you. So I
think that is just what I haveto share.
I love that. And I'm gonna say Idon't think that that applies
just to African farmers. Ireally don't. I think that that
concept is important for allfarmers, because I think, I
(41:39):
think all of us can get kind ofstuck in the way it's always
been done, you know, especiallyif you, if you're a multi
generational farmer, you know,if your parents did it and your
grandparents did it and yourgreat grandparents did it like
we're beef farmers, that's allwe do. We do beef or we're,
we're dairy farmers, or we'reapple growers, or whatever it
(42:00):
is, and yeah, and we've alwaysdone it this way, and if you
limit yourself to that, you'reabsolutely right, like we lose
so much opportunity that wedon't even know is there. And so
I, I really love that idea. Youknow, you're talking about
following that spirit withinside of you that that wisdom
(42:21):
and guidance that comes from,you know, where you're sitting
there and you're listening
springs from, yeah, yeah. And totrust that, and to trust that,
if you have an idea and it seemslike a crazy idea, it's okay,
and that's probably the rightthing to be doing. Because Thank
(42:43):
you. Thank you.
Thank you.
When, when I told people I wasgoing to work with farmers to
help support their overall well,being like, I don't know if
you're going to be able to dothat. And I was like, you know,
I fought with myself for sixmonths. I was like, this is,
this is not reasonable. Like,farmers aren't going to want to
(43:06):
do this. And finally, you weretalking about God giving you
your calling. Finally, God waslike,
This is what you're supposed tobe doing, and it's where my
passion is. I'm like, this is, Ilove farmers.
We want to do that, and we wantto exactly through, like the
(43:27):
farming has to be this way orthat way, like break all these
boundaries, because there was atime where farming was something
that everybody did on asubsistence level in their
backyard, and nobody looked downon that as, oh, that's, of
course, it was real farming, andwe started out in the garden,
(43:48):
for crying out loud, God, puttwo people in A garden and said,
So let's, let's embrace that andrelease all this judgment that
we're holding on to that is iscrippling us as as people, as
(44:09):
growers. I'm like, so full ofinspiration right now.
Yay.
So so thank you for sharingthat, because I really do think
that that's important for all ofus. I think all of us really
need to embrace who it is thatwe were created to be, and to
let that, let that flourish.Because I believe that we all
(44:32):
have a purpose here that only wecan do. And you know, people are
going to find help where theyneed help, but if we didn't have
medefo,
all the farmers that you'veworked with so far would have
been lacking something very,very important. And if we didn't
have K we'd be missing a littlemore laughter in the world.
(44:54):
That's right. Yeah.
But I want to, I just want tothank you so much. It has been
so much fun, and I look forwardto keeping up with you. You
know, after, after this episodeand and go, go forth and have a
friend. Thank you so much. Case,it was amazing, just an amazing
(45:16):
time. I so much. Enjoy myself
just just hearing, just justseeing how someone wants to hear
that story. You want to shareit, and it is not something that
you're faking. You're trying toshare with you. I feel the
energy like relating is not likeyour year, but I feel like I'm
relating with you one on one. Soit's just so beautiful. Thank
you so much.
(45:38):
Thank you.
A
great night. Alright, thank youso much. Bye
farm. What's calling our showsopen, goodbye, farewell, so
long. I do see you next week.Same time, same place for food,
flowers and fun. Go in peace.
(46:02):
Visit us atwww.penlightfarmers.com
you.
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Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders takes you back to 1983, when two teenagers were found murdered, execution-style, on a quiet Texas hill. What followed was decades of rumors, false leads, and a case that law enforcement could never seem to close. Now, veteran investigative journalist M. William Phelps reopens the file — uncovering new witnesses, hidden evidence, and a shocking web of deaths that may all be connected. Over nine gripping episodes, Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders unravels a story 42 years in the making… and asks the question: who’s really been hiding the truth?
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