What is the Good News Level you may ask? Well, it is an ingenious surveying device invented by Peter Storey to help small farmers to plan their farming activities more effectively.. During the 1980’s, Peter Storey worked with UMN on a range of community development projects in Tansen. During this time, he saw a need to develop a simple, cheap and a user-friendly tool to help farmers determine the levels on their land. The solution was the Good News Level the design of which came to Peter in the middle of the night following much prayer!

On Monday 15th March, Peter facilitated a one day soil conservation training for UMN and almost 20 people attended from various areas of work.  Peter provided some background about his soil conservation work in Nepal and Taiwan, followed by some practical activities using the Good News Level. The participants learned that there are in fact seven different ways in which the Good News Level can be used by small farmers, including determining the slope of land, the appropriate distance between terraces, and ensuring the correct fall for irrigation pipes and canals.

The Good News Level certainly has the potential to be good news for many of UMN’s partners and target communities involved in agriculture in hilly areas. The challenge for UMN now is to ensure that the use of this practical tool is incorporated into the everyday on-farm planning activities of small farmers involved in UMN’s programmes.

If you are interested in finding out more, please catch Mike Young at mike.young@umn.com.np or investigate some of the several books written by Peter Storey in UMN’s Knowledge Resource Centre at UMN headquaters, Thapathali.