Well, after a very slow start to the rainy season, we are now being inundated with rain. Another wonderful advantage of having healthy, heavily mulched soil–too little rain and it holds the moisture longer, too much rain and it is able to absorb and filter the excess through the soil and replenish the water table in the process! We have decided to post the same two pictures from the last post to show you the changes that have occurred.

The neighbor’s field that was struggling to even survive has recovered somewhat, but it will still be about two months before they are able to harvest any food from the area as they chose only to plant maize.

Our field, by contrast, as can be seen in the bottom picture is growing much healthier and we have already been harvesting vegetables such as pumpkin leaves and amaranth. We will also not have to harvest every thing from our field in March when others are harvesting maize; our maize will be ready but then about a month after that we will get our millet and sorghum, a month after  that our sweet potatoes will be ready, a month after that we will be getting our cassava, and throughout the dry season we will be harvesting our pigeon peas…in other words we will have yields coming from our field right up until next year’s rains! Now that’s Permaculture!

The rains have really gotten off to a slow start this year in Malawi. In fact, this is the worst start to a rainy season that Never Ending Food has experienced in the last 15 years. With that said, these drought-like conditions have afforded us a great opportunity to compare the drought-resistant advantages of Permaculture to the drought-vulnerable methods of maize planting that the majority of Malawians still opt to use. In a normal rainy season, the rains often come by the beginning of December and by the New Year’s Eve the maize is up almost a foot high. This year, however, we got some very early rains in October and then not much of anything since then. The maize in many fields in our area is only about 3-4 inches high and curling due to lack of moisture. A couple fields have not even bothered to plant yet due to the lack of rains.

Our field, by contrast, is doing very well and the majority of our maize has reached 10-12 inches in height, despite being planted later than many in our area.  Our secret? Healthy soil, mulch, and mixed cropping in permanent beds. At the end of last year’s harvest we heavily mulched all of our permanent beds so that the soil was protected from the elements, gaining organic matter and ‘structure’, and not being stepped on or compacted. This year, that organic matter and soft soil helped to serve as a sponge that absorbed and held the smaller early rains that we did get. Our mixed-crop system also helps to ensure that even if our maize fails there will still be food in our fields. We have intercropped drought-resistant root crops such as cassava and sweet potatoes, added nitrogen-fixing crops such as soy beans and pigeon peas, and then added groundcovers such as pumpkins and peanuts to help shade the soil and maintain its moisture levels. The pictures speak for themselves. The picture at the top of this post is of a nearby field that was planted before ours was by a family who has just moved into the area and has not yet had time to ‘absorb’ the lessons and benefits of Permaculture principles. The picture at the bottom is our ‘Zone Three’ field, comprised mostly of rain-fed annual and perennial food crops. The truly remarkable thing about our Permaculture system is that before many people have even begun to plant anything, we are already harvesting, eating, and solar-drying surplus. Just in the past few weeks we have had harvests of mulberries, avocadoes, peppers, peaches, vegetable leaves (amaranth, sweet potato, chayote, baobab, water spinach, etc), different types of yams, and several other foods that are more specific to Malawi. Perhaps 2012 will be the year that people will really take notice of the fact that with a bit of thoughtful planning Malawi truly could have ‘Never Ending Food’!

Never Ending Food was recently privileged to play host to visit from a group of Second-Graders from one of Lilongwe’s International Schools. The children (fourteen in all, plus two teachers) had a fun, interactive, and hopefully very educational visit! The day began by learning about Malawi’s vast base of natural resources by observing many of the items that were on the food-and-resource display that they had been set up for them. We looked at nutritious local foods and even income-generating activities such as handbags made from recycled plastic and shoes made from grass. As part of this ‘resource’ theme, several volunteers helped to mix up a batch of local ‘camel-foot’ juice (not as bad as it sounds, it’s actually a lemony-flavored pod from a local tree that we make into a flour and mix with sugar and water to make a very refreshing drink).

Next, they were able to get their hands dirty by filling up a potting tube and planting cuttings of mulberries, cassava-trees, and sweet potatoes (which they were able to take home with them). After this we all took a look at how a solar-dryer works and the children helped us to fill it up with vegetable leaves that they located throughout the garden.

One of the highlights, however, had to have been the feeding of the worms in the worm-farm. We even took a few of these worms to feed to the chickens where we discussed the importance of animal management. Another huge hit was the finding of toads in one of the fish ponds. We used this as an opportunity to talk about natural ecosystems, the interaction between living things, and natural pest management. The day ended with a look at the importance of diversity—in nature, in nutrition, and even in their own class as many of the children come from different countries and have so many great things to share with each other!

Check out the latest issue of the ‘Kids Can Make A Difference’ newsletter.  There is an article by Kristof that highlights the work of Howard, Hardwell, and Junior the three boys that recently received their certificates in Permaculture Design.   As a brief update to the boy’s efforts: Hardwell has now moved to a Secondary School where he is boarding and working with other students and some of the teachers to help spread the ideas of Permaculture.  He says that he has also established small gardens around the area where he is boarding to help himself and others receive food and cut their boarding costs.  Junior has moved out of his grandmother’s house and is now back with his parents.  Since his departure we have not heard much about his progress, but we are hoping that he is able to carry on the good work that he started while living in the model village.  And Howard conintues to implement new designs around his house near Never Ending Food.  He and his younger brother, Chikumbutso, have really been changing the area that they live and also bringing their friends by to give them tours.   The inspiration of these young Permaculturalists continue to provide the inspiration for Never Ending Food to push on in their efforts to reach out to people like them!

 Kamp Kwacha was a week-long camp that was organized by Peace Corps Volunteers to focus on small-business skills (i.e. product development, budgeting, marketing, record keeping, etc)  “Kwacha’ is the word for the Malawian currency, so Never Ending Food was invited to the camp to give a sesion on ‘Income Generating Activities’ using local resources.

There were about 20 secondary-school students who were selected from across the country to attend the camp, and each of these participants had to write an essay about the reasons for wanting to attend such a training.  Kristof set up a display of local food products, medicines, handicrafts, and other ideas for using Malawi’s vast array of natural resources towards economic gain and poverty alleviation.  He focused a great deal on the differences between a “resource” and a “waste,” since in Malawi it is extremely common for local resources to be overlooked, ignored, stigmatized, and otherwise ‘wasted’.  He also used a quote that he had seen written on the wall of a church while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica, it read: “It is a terrible thing to be born with sight but lack vision.”  There was a good conversation with the participants about the meaning of this quote and how Malawi can begin to restore its ‘vision’ for a healthy, wealthy, and sustainable future using what Malawi already has available.