04.26.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:57 am by Kristof
Now that we have a bit more access to the internet, we’ve updated a few things:
1) Permaculture Schools page. Don’t be fooled by the title - the ideas can be applied to any setting anywhere. Do take a look no matter where you are and be inspired by our colleagues!
2) Presentations for Downloading. A whole new page that will be dedicated to sharing presentations. There is one presentation on the School Health and Nutrition Programme’s Permaculture Pilot.
Enjoy!
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03.22.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:46 am by Kristof
Hello all, We just wanted you to know that we have been struggling with the joys of electronic communication here in Malawi lately. Our telephone service provider went on strike for awhile, and then we got struck by lightning that blew up the phone line. We hope to get everything sorted soon and upload some new things that have been happening around Permaculture in Malawi. Please have patience and continue to check back with us. See you soon!
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02.26.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:57 pm by Kristof
Check out our new pages!
- Malawi’s Low Input Food and Nutrition Manual is now on-line. Check out this great resource for teaching and learning about sustainable living. It is all in PDF format and broken into downloadable sized sections. You can find it all on the “Low Input Manual” page.
- One of Never Ending Food’s apprentices takes Permaculture to the community. Please see the page “A Church Goes Green” for a description and pictures of Issac Kafakalawa’s efforts to establish a Permaculture demonstration plot at a local church.
More to come soon! Thanks for your support and all the encouraging responses that we have been getting from those of you who have accessed this site. We will try to continue to include relevant and educational material on Permaculture and nutrition activities here in Malawi.
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02.20.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:16 am by Kristof
Hello Everyone! Please check out the latest on donating to the Permaculture Network in Malawi (see Donations and International Payments page), as well as the latest from our intern, Hope Thornton, and her efforts to assist with our “model village” (see Virtual Tour Page). We have also uploaded the latest issue of the Permacutlure Network in Malawi’s newsletter that focuses on “Culture” (you can download it from the Permaculture Newsletter page).
Coming soon:
- Watch for a page on Malawi’s sustainable school feeding project! Stacia Nordin is involved in an ambitious partnership with Malawi’s Ministry of Education and GTZ (a German Technical Agency) to get Permaculture into over 5000 primary schools in Malawi!
- Never Ending Food’s community outreach reaches out to a local church where a parking lot has been converted to a Garden of Eden with the efforts of Issac Kafakalawa, a local intern of NEF with great ideas and an even greater ambition to improve Malawi!
- The Alumni Exchange Programme of the U.S. Embassy launches four Permaculture demonstration gardens throughout the country and Never Ending Food is there to offer guidance, assistance, and encouragement.
- Plus, Partners in Hope, a hospital near the capital city of Lilongwe that focuses primarily on HIV/AIDS, asks Never Ending Food for assistance with integrating Permaculture into the work that they are doing! They are currently in the process of designing a model of a Permaculture house and living area that will be used for teaching about improving health in Malawi. We hope to bring you pictures of this and all these other developments very soon!
We wish you all the best for 2007 and hope your gardens all flourish with Permaculture ideas!
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09.12.06
Posted in Nutrition, Food Security, Permaculture, Malawi at 12:22 pm by Kristof
Improving Nutrition Through Permaculture in Malawi Overview
In Malawi, health is directly dependent upon the environment as over 90% of people living in Malawi fulfill their nutritional needs through subsistence agriculture. If the environment around doesn’t supply the necessary food, then there is nothing to eat. Despite this, we are finding that current agricultural systems are destroying the very soil that plants depend on to grow, making it more difficult every year to extract a yield. Permaculture is a useful approach for improving the environment around us while at the same time providing us with food and healthy water, in addition to medicines, fuel, and building materials. In Malawi we developed an approach based upon the principles of Permaculture to restore both nutritional and environmental health. The Permaculture Nutrition activities include:
· Promotion of local foods through seed collections, establishing permanent gardens, and demonstrations on using and identifying the local foods;
· Courses to allow people to understand and learn methods of Permaculture Nutrition;
· Developing a training manual with supplemental teaching aids so others can have a base of teaching tools to work with;
· Compiling a field guide of local foods in Malawi. This field guide will to be used by extension workers to teach Malawians and expatriates about the abundance of foods Malawi has and how to utilize them.
What is Permaculture?
The word “Permaculture��? is the combination of the two words “permanent��? and “culture��? or “agriculture��?. Two Australian men named Bill Mollison and David Holmgren coined the term in the 1970’s. It is a philosophy that allows us to use the resources that we have around us to their fullest potential. By observing and learning from our environment, such as how nature replenishes its soil, how nature protects and conserves its water resources, how nature has adapted to the specific climate of an area—we can learn how to imitate these natural processes when we are designing our farms or gardens. The more closely that we can work with nature, the more likely we are to establish a balance which will provide us with the things that we need without hurting the environment. One of the founding fathers of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, has defined applying Permaculture to agriculture as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems, which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems.��?
Permaculture has a useful saying that can help to point us all in a more positive direction:
SEE SOLUTIONS, Not Problems.
Although we have created a number of environmental and health problems in this world, it is not too late to restore health in our bodies and in our environment. To do this we will need to change our thinking about our place as humans in this world and realize that we are part of nature, not above it. We currently see humans all over the world trying to control the environment around them, when instead if they just live with nature it will provide them with all that they need. To us, this is what Permaculture is all about—living within the cycles of nature.
Why use Permaculture to improve Nutrition?
In Malawi we began to notice a relationship between the emphasis on maize, activities that are leading to environmental degradation, and the resulting nutritional problems we are currently seeing. The agricultural systems that are being promoted now involve planting solely maize in combination with fertilizers and chemicals to attack insects and other plants that may interfere with maize growth. This system is unhealthy for both the human body and for the environment. The body needs to eat a variety of different foods in order to maintain health, just as the environment needs to contain a variety of plants, animals, insects, etc. to maintain its healthy balance. Permaculture emphasizes learning about and imitating these natural systems of variety and balance to provide for all our needs, and by doing so it provides us with the diverse diet that we need for health.
Improving Nutrition through Promoting Local Foods
In the past, Malawi’s environment and diet revolved around a wide variety of local fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, millets, sorghums, roots, and various animal foods. Although many of these foods are still available, they are vanishing quickly because of the push to supply maize year-round either by forcing the land to produce it or by bringing in maize aid when the environment is unable to meet our maize demands. Maize is not the only culprit, people are becoming more interested in obtaining the foods of the west than in giving attention to the abundance of foods right around them. Expatriates who come in to ‘help’ often never take the time to learn about these valuable food resources that are already here. These local foods that are being crowded out by maize and western foods are often higher in nutrients than similar types of western foods, are available with no work or money, and are delicious! We have categorized over 500 plant foods available in Malawi that are able to meet all the nutritional needs of people living here and we are trying to revive the knowledge of these plants. Slowly we have been collecting these food plants, sharing the seeds, teaching about their importance in nutrition and the environment, using them in our own meals, and encouraging their use for anyone living in Malawi. In two years we have established over 150 different local foods just in one small half-acre plot, in addition to other plants that can be used for fuels, medicines, and building materials. Many places in Malawi are now establishing similar gardens of local foods because of our program—at health centers, at nutrition rehabilitation units, in villages utilizing ‘gray’ water from washing clothes, dishes, or bathing, at the end of wells where water often sits in a large puddle, at mission hospitals, for AIDS patients, at schools—the list goes on. We are now beginning to document these Permaculture Nutrition activities that are taking place so that we can share with others the potential that the environment has if we work with it.
Teaching through Courses and Sharing
One way that the project has been teaching about Permaculture and nutrition is through a week-long course that we developed. In the course we look closely at the cycles in nature and how each part of it works—the soil, water, trees, plants, insects, and animals. We examine what we as humans are doing to interfere with nature, but more so, what we can do to protect the nature cycle so that we can benefit from it. We also look closely at nutrition: how the human body works, what it needs, and how we can provide what we need through nature. A key component of these courses is understanding. A wise person once noted that “People will not preserve and protect a natural environment which they do not understand or respect. When people learn about the relationship of all forms of life to each other and to the earth, they begin to have a responsible attitude toward natural resources and their wise use.” Where can we gain this understanding? There are many sources that we use in our courses: speaking, printed materials, visual aids, and sharing with each other, but the BEST way to gain understanding is from nature itself. So naturally, a large part of the course takes place outside observing how nature works, how it reproduces, how it remains fertile, and how it balances itself to support a wide variety of living things.
Another main point in Permaculture is to “Observe, Learn, and Share”. Observe what is happening, Learn from it, and then Share the information with others. These courses are much more than just teaching about Permaculture and nutrition, it is just as much about sharing knowledge within the group. We ‘teachers’ have been learning as much from these courses about the local environment, foods, and farming practices as we have been teaching. A key group of teachers that often gets overlooked is our experienced local teachers, often labeled as ‘indigenous knowledge’. It is this knowledge that has evolved over generations that the Permaculture Nutrition approach seeks to learn about, try for ourselves, and share.
Courses are not the only way that we share what we have learned; we also share these ideas through conversations with neighbors, friends, and colleagues. We’ve held sessions around our community in villages, at the agricultural research station, at the health centre, to expatriate groups, and in the schools. We haven’t counted the numbers of people that attended the courses and sessions that we have given over the past 8 years, nor have we been able to follow up with people with whom we have spoken as this work is part of our life, not part of a ‘project’. If we included all the people that have learned through other channels such as short sessions, conversations, and garden tours, I suppose we would have talked with thousands of people about Permaculture Nutrition.
Teaching through Training Manuals
Another method we are working on now is the compilation of two manuals: one a Training Manual, and the other a Field Guide of Local Foods in Malawi. The Training Manual is in the format of our training courses and is meant to give trainers the tools for giving their own Permaculture Nutrition sessions. It is also geared toward people who want to implement Permaculture Nutrition in their lives. Whether or not someone uses the manual for training, the manual encourages everyone to share what they learn at whatever level they feel comfortable, such as with friends, family members, church groups, neighbors, etc.
The Field Guide of Local Foods is still in its infancy, but the idea is to develop the guide into a teaching tool for extension workers to identify and utilize local foods. We plan to include color photographs, line drawings, descriptions, scientific and local names, uses, seasonal availability, and nutritional information. Along with this Field Guide we are trying to integrate Permaculture Nutrition activities into the National Herbarium and Botanical Gardens so that more individuals have access to planting materials.
The Future of Permaculture Nutrition
Although our Permaculture Nutrition approach began with our work in the Ministry of Health with the US Peace Corps, the approach is now also being integrated into other food security projects in Malawi and in the region. The project is spreading itself throughout Malawi by people that have experienced the potential the environment has for giving us health, and we believe this is the only true way for permanent improvements.
We are now putting more energy into providing trainers with teaching tools to make it easier for them to share Permaculture Nutrition with others. These teaching tools will also be applicable to other countries and similar programs are already taking place in South Africa, Zimbabwe, England, the United States, and Australia, just to name a few. The uniqueness of our approach in Malawi is the emphasis on local foods and medicines to provide nutrition and health. This idea can also be transferred, but each country needs to identify and protect its own particular resources.
We hope that as others reconnect with the environment around them that they will collaborate with us in sharing the potential that nature has to provide us with nutrition and health if we respect it.
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Posted in Food Security, Permaculture, Malawi at 11:39 am by Kristof
The following are a list of interview questions that were asked of us a while back and the answers that we gave. We feel that the responses help to illustrate some of the successes and barriers that are faced here in Malawi concerning the implementation of Permaculture principles.
1. How did you begin to be interested in Permaculture? What made you decide to develop your ideas?
In April of 1997, my wife, Stacia, and I were both sent to do HIV/AIDS prevention work in Malawi, Africa through the U.S. Peace Corps. Stacia is a Registered Dietitian, and I am a Social Worker. As we began our work, we visited various villages to orient ourselves to the areas in which we’d be working. In each of these villages, we asked the people what they viewed as their major problems. Not a single person at that time mentioned HIV or AIDS as being a problem, which was surprising to us considering that Malawi was supposed to be one of the top 10 countries in the world affected by the disease. Instead, people almost unanimously said that food security was their biggest problem.
At this time it was the dry season, so very little was growing and the landscape was blackened by the annual burning of vegetation that occurs in many parts of Africa. We asked why people weren’t growing food and most people replied that water during this time of the year was a problem. As we looked around, however, we saw a lot of water resources that were being wasted. For example, many women would go in the morning to fetch water—which could be up to a kilometer away—and then they would use it once to wash dishes or clothes and discard the waste water on the bare swept soil around their house. Other places, such as the drainage areas around the bathing areas or the end of boreholes had standing water that was just stagnating and breeding mosquitoes. When we asked people about the possibility of using these water sources more productively in the annual production of food, many agreed that it was a possibility, but then would counter with the argument that “you would need to give me seeds and fertilizer��?.
Neither one of us had a strong background in agriculture, but both of us had grown up with families that had small summer gardens. From this limited experience we were pretty sure that you could grow some food without having to purchase seeds—after all, where do seeds come from if not from nature? We were also fairly sure that a lot could be accomplished with out the purchase of fertilizer with the incorporation of things like compost and mulching. So we began to collect local seeds and try out some ideas in our yard while also doing research. Fortunately, we were stationed at an Agricultural Research Station that had a nice library. This is where we came across concepts such as organics, bio-intensive gardening, sustainable agriculture, and finally…Permaculture.
There was a small book in the library called the “Kitchen Garden Book��? that was written by a lady in Malawi named June Walker. We decided to pay her a visit and this was one of the true turning points in our lives. Mrs. Walker and her husband were colonialists that had lived in Malawi for almost 50 years. About 15 years prior to our arrival, they purchased a plot of land along the shore of Lake Malawi. This land was steep, eroded, and seriously degraded from years of hillside farming. Nobody wanted this land any more because it had become unproductive. With the use of Permaculture principles such as water harvesting, contour swales, composting, mulching, and intercropping with “guilds��? they successfully managed to turn it into a highly productive area that resembles a tropical rainforest. Now there are fruits in every season of the year, vegetables and salad fixings any time you feel like a refreshing meal, legumes and staple crops such as yams and sweet potatoes abound, and there’s even enough excess to make things like jams, chutneys, and wine. Seeing this “Garden of Eden��? first-hand convinced us that Permaculture definitely can work in Malawi, so the day we returned to our house we began to experiment with these new ideas around our own house.
This experimentation gave us the confidence we needed to begin to teach others about this method of agriculture. This eventually evolved into a 12-day training course that we presented around the country and have now refined to allow for other requests, anything from introductory one-hour sessions or 3-day workshops to 5-day beginner courses. We also use our current house as a demonstration plot and train various groups on a monthly basis. All of our teaching incorporates Permaculture, nutrition, and the reduction and care of diseases (especially HIV/AIDS) in Malawi, all of which are becoming integral to sustainability of the country.
2. What were the reactions of the villagers as you tried out your methods on their swept soil?
Teaching about Permaculture is one of those things that’s overwhelmingly satisfying, challenging, and frustrating all at the same time. It’s the thing that has kept us in Malawi for 10 years and also has us pulling our hair out at times. Malawi is at the point where the concepts of Permaculture are eagerly being received by many people. Modern agriculture combined with the continued slash and burn method of clearing the land and the resulting erosion has devastated the soil fertility of the country. Chemical fertilizer is currently the only thing that is being used to compensate for this loss. Up until about 6 years ago, fertilizer prices were subsidized by the government. Once these subsidies were removed many farmers found themselves in the dilemma of not being able to afford the fertilizer but trying to grow maize on soil that could no longer sustain a harvestable crop. People had become so dependent on agricultural inputs that they had forgotten about natural methods of restoring health to the soil and to their crops.
As we teach about this, you can often see faces light up as people recognize the potential that the country has to solve its own problems and obtain food security on a year-round basis. These are the people where we focus our efforts. Unfortunately, it is not everybody. Many people are not ready to hear about the alternatives yet. A good example of this is the two people that have been employed by us since we arrived. One is a single lady with six children who helps us with some of the more time-consuming tasks around the house. The other is our night watchman. Both have worked with us for the same amount of time, but during this period have taken very different paths. The lady has begun to use Permaculture around her house and saved so much money on fertilizer that she purchased a dining room set for her and her children. She has food throughout the year and now even teaches about Permaculture if we are not around when people come to the house. The watchman is a single man who takes care of two children. He has not taken to Permaculture at all and is constantly trying to obtain loans for fertilizer or take an advance to buy food for his family, and his food reserves run out each year before the next crop is harvested. This has come to be known as the “hungry season��? in Malawi and affects many families on an annual basis. With Permaculture, there is no reason for this hungry season because Malawi is blessed with a twelve month growing season.
Other people are just so ingrained in the “way things are done��? that any change is very difficult. One example is the sweeping that you mentioned. Around each house in the villages, the yards are swept down to bare dirt. The majority of soil nutrients are removed in this process, and the sun bakes this soil as hard as a brick. This makes it very difficult to establish any useful plants or tree crops near the homes. After one of our Permaculture trainings, one of the participants was so excited about the possibility of restoring the soil health around his house that he stated that he was going to go home and establish “anti-sweeping clubs��?! When we ran into this person a few months later and inquired about the success of his clubs, he said that he couldn’t even get his own wife to stop sweeping, “She’s addicted��? he said.
3. What’s the most common response that you get from the villagers who see what you have done?
This one really surprised me. At our demonstration plot we routinely take people around and show them the different things that are planted and the Permaculture principles that help them to grow. We tend to focus on the local food plants that Malawi has to offer since they are more adapted than introduced crops to Malawi’s growing conditions. Stacia has a list of over 500 edible plants that can be found throughout the country. At our last house we had over 150 of these foods growing on a year-round basis. As of a year and a half ago we moved to a new house and started over so we now probably have about 50-60 different local foods growing. Many Malawians are very excited to see these foods that they remember eating in their youth, or remember their grandparents using, or maybe have never even heard of. They also get excited about the potential that Permaculture has to offer, but when we ask them why every village, house, or place of work can’t look like this, the most common answer is, “We Malawians are too lazy.��? The first time I heard this I was so shocked I could hardly speak. Malawians are extremely hard working, and the current agricultural practices are so labor intensive that it borders on ridiculous. To farm and eat maize, it requires a family to spend several weeks preparing the field by digging ridges, then there’s the planting of the seed, the first fertilizer application, the first weeding, the second fertilizer application, the second weeding, the harvesting, the soaking, the milling, and the cooking. Not a lazy person’s choice of food by any means. It seems that many people have been ingrained with and believe in this notion of laziness even though all signs point in the other direction. The bigger problem in my view is the lack of free thinking. The ability to try new things, experiment, and be creative seems to have been hindered during the 30 years of dictatorship. This translates into a fear of change and a reluctance to “break the mold��?.
Stacia and I do the majority of our Permaculture ourselves without being full-time farmers. If anything, we are the lazy ones since once your “permanent systems��? are in place they become less and less work each year. This means more time for laying in the hammock and drinking the homemade wine!
4. How do you respond to the Malawian farmers who don’t seem to believe that what you have done with your land is possible to do with their own?
This goes back to what I said earlier about not everybody being ready to adapt the lessons of Permaculture to their own lives. We don’t spend a lot of our energy on people who aren’t ready; we try to remain focused on the people who are interested, enthusiastic and willing to give it a try. When we do a training of 20 people, we expect about 3-4 people to be really excited about it and apply it at home and in their work, another 4-6 people who may try out a few of the ideas, and the rest to go home with little change. This may seem like low goals to set for yourself, but that one person who can really take these concepts to heart will be able to go home and influence a lot more people than we will ever be able to in a short training.
The flip side to this is that there are a lot of obstacles that need to be overcome before you can successfully teach people about Permaculture or get them to the point that they believe that it can work for them. First of all, there is a stigma surrounding the use of local foods. If villagers are using these plants then they are viewed as being “poor��? or of being “bad farmers��?. Instead of celebrating the abundance of resources that are available, many choose to ignore them and try to produce diets of introduced foods such as maize, cabbages, mustard greens, onions, and tomatoes. Secondly, there is an over-dependence on a single staple crop—maize—to meet the entire country’s annual need for food security. This puts people at risk in many ways. If the growing conditions are not favorable for this crop (which they often aren’t), then the harvests will not be sufficient to meet the demands of the population. Even when harvests are enough, a maize-based diet doesn’t provide all the nutrients that a person needs to remain healthy. When there is a poor growing season, donors are quick to rush in with foreign donations of more maize, further promoting the dependence on this one crop.
These are all things to take into consideration before saying that a person is or isn’t interested in the benefits of Permaculture. It is also important to teach about why it is important to the individual. In the past, many Malawian’s were told what to do but never why these things may be important to them. Noncompliance with these directives could result in grave consequences. For instance, there were forest plantations established in the north of the country that could have provided a lot of revenue, building supplies, and employment for that area, but the people that were involved with planting those trees were never convinced that they would receive the benefits from them. As a result, shortly after the dictator left office the forestry workers went on strike over an issue and burned the forest out of frustration. This was a lose-lose situation for everyone.
When we teach about Permaculture, we first try to show the importance of all the components such as nutrition and its relationship to the individual health, soil fertility and its relationship to reducing the dependency on expensive fertilizers, and even the importance of having food at your fingertips on a daily basis so as to eliminate the “hungry season’.
5. What has surprised you the most as your project has grown?
Probably the most surprising thing for me has been how much potential there is for Permaculture to assist with the problems that we see in Malawi, and how quickly this can be achieved. Permaculture is a holistic approach to living rather than just another agricultural system. This acknowledges that no problem or solution stands on its own. If we look at a simple problem like soil runoff, we see that it intensifies itself if left unchecked until a loss of soil nutrients become a eutrophication problem in a small river, and that small river becomes a potential for flooding when it joins the larger rivers, and those floods devastate houses, roads, crops, and infrastructure, and the resulting refuse that is washed into Lake Malawi ends up clogging the hydroelectric turbines and causing a power shortage for the entire country. People need to make the connections between the problems they face and the root causes of them, many of which are environmental and can be addressed with the application of Permaculture principles.
In terms of how quickly this can be achieved can be demonstrated by our current demonstration plot. Within six months of moving in we had more food established around our house than almost everyone in the area, many of whom have lived here for 10-15 years. Within one year we were giving tours for people to see what can be achieved with the use of Permaculture, and now at the year and a half mark we are already able to share excess foods and seeds with others. This type of potential is simply remarkable. Just imagine what would happen to food security and nutritional problems if every person in Malawi (11.5 million) even planted one fruit tree. This is not an unreasonable request, in the 10 years that Stacia and I have been here we have planted hundreds.
6. Why do you think that farmers keep buying expensive fertilizer when your method works better, provides a greater array of crops, is cheaper and is so easy? What can volunteers in the field do to create a change into more sustainable, organic agriculture? What can returned PCVs in the States or in future positions with international aid organizations do?
One thing to keep in mind is that we don’t teach people to stop growing maize or stop using fertilizer. If people stopped using fertilizer when planting maize, in the first year there could be serious life or death consequences for that farmer and his/her family because the health of the soil is so bad. What we do teach is that with the incorporation of Permaculture principles, a person can start to reduce the amount of purchased fertilizer even within the first year. Perhaps after 5-7 years of intensive soil care that farmer may be able to rid themselves of the burden of fertilizer purchases. Currently, the soil in Malawi is too depleted to support the sudden withdrawal of chemical additives. The same goes for changing the current diet in Malawi, which is maize-based. We teach about the importance of reducing the amount of maize in the diet incorporating other foods instead and the nutritional impact on individual health, but we also know that behavior change takes time. We are all taught how and what to eat when we are very young. Our tastes for foods are also developed as we grow. If parents introduce their children to a wide variety of foods, then the chances are increased of that child growing up to eat a healthy and diverse diet. If we are taught to only eat one food day after day then the change to a healthier and more diverse diet will be a greater struggle, but one that can be achieved with determination and understanding.
The other answer to this first question is that many farmers are at a crossroads in Malawi, they are experiencing a great deal of problems but do not know where to turn for achievable alternatives. Agriculture Extension Workers are giving messages of how to obtain better yields with modern agricultural practices. This means more extensive mono-cropping, the purchase of new hybrids, the proper application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and the elimination of all plants and insects that may be viewed as a threat or as competition. Children in the Malawian school system are also subjected to these messages in their agricultural studies. They don’t receive education on the hundreds of local food plants that are available, how to plant them, or even how to use them. This knowledge that used to be passed down generation after generation is now being left by the wayside, overshadowed by foreign influence and cultural stigma. Sometimes it is a much more complicated question than simply asking, “Why doesn’t everybody do it?��?
In terms of volunteers in the field, it is important to keep stressing the same points over and over…VARIETY AND DIVERSITY! This is what it keeps coming back to. This is important for human nutrition, for soil health, for bio-diversity, for water management, for integrated pest management, for food security, for community health, and for the health of all the systems that we rely upon as humans. This is the way that nature provides for itself and it is the way that we need to start providing for ourselves if we want to have a chance of obtaining a sustainable future. I read recently that the bulk of the world’s calories now come from only about 20 plants. This places us all in a very dangerous predicament, if these crops should start to fail for any number of very plausible reasons, we will all be affected by the consequences of “putting all our eggs in one basket��?.
The same goes for international development workers, the only thing I’d add is to take the time to find out about the local resources of the country in which you are working. Many well intentioned programs fail simply for this reason. Vast amounts of time and money often go into the development of programs that could have been avoided if local solutions had been sought. An example of this lies in the approaches that have been taken in Malawi to combat vitamin A deficiency. The current approach at health centers is to issue children under five years of age with a small capsule of liquid that contains vitamin A. This capsule is given to the child’s parents with little or no explanation of where vitamin A can be found naturally. As a result, many people in Malawi now think that vitamin A can only be found at a health center. Other groups have been encouraging carrots which don’t grow well here, seldom produce any viable seed, and are not very familiar for use in the villages, but it’s the one high source of vitamin A that foreign development workers are familiar with so it is widely promoted. There are so many sources of vitamin A in Malawian foods that it is difficult to see how there is any type of deficiency at all, but this just lends itself to the argument that lack of education and misguided programs are hindering true progress in this area. One of the simplest and cheapest ways to combat vitamin A deficiency would be to encourage people to grow and eat the foods that they know i.e. papayas, mangoes, guavas, passion fruit, pumpkins, dark green leafy vegetables, etc. Many of these foods are also great weaning foods for children under 5, and many also produce within one growing season. Instead, the international development community is now seriously considering fortifying sugar with vitamin A. This not only goes against good nutritional advice by promoting the increased consumption of sugar, but it again lends itself to confusing the population about the true sources of vitamin A. This is only one example, but there are many more out there that would also serve to illustrate the importance and practicality of taking the time to learn about all of a country’s local resources.
7. How do you see the incorporation of Permaculture into Malawian culture affecting the nutrition and health of the citizens? Have you noticed any changes in the health of the farmers that have adopted Permaculture?
It’s interesting that you choose the word “culture��? rather than “society��?. Permaculture has a lot of implications on Malawian culture. In many ways it reflects the wisdom of the Malawian ancestors who survived for thousands of years without the assistance of aid agencies, NGOs, and foreign intervention. It also represents a time when farmers were able to meet food demands on a year-round basis without the need for expensive inputs and chemical fertilizer. According to a Malawian friend of ours who has a doctorate in agriculture, up until 1950 in Malawi’s entire recorded history there was only one year that mentioned any sort of food crisis. Now it has become an annual event. So what happened in those 50 years? Many people point to population growth as the main problem facing food security today. In my opinion, this simply means more hands to help grow things. One of the major problems that has affected Malawian agriculture was the introduction of the Green Revolution. This so called “revolution��? was supposed to end all of the world’s hunger problems through the introduction of higher yielding hybrid crops. When hybridized maize came to Malawi many farmers adopted it as their staple of choice since the yield was much greater per plant than the traditional millets and sorghums that were being grown. Many farmers also started to clear away other traditional food crops to make room for the new “wonder��? crop. Unfortunately, many hybrid seeds cannot be saved and replanted the following year because the seeds tend to be sterile or lose some of their parent’s genetic traits. This meant that farmers now had to begin buying their seeds. Hybrid crops also tend to need heavy fertilizer applications to reach their true potential. This became another expense for the Malawian farmer who up until this time had become accustomed to no-to-low input agriculture. In order to meet the costs of this high input agriculture, the farmer sold the only thing he/she had to sell…their yields. This meant that the thatched silos that used to be full of staple crops now became quickly depleted to meet the expenses of that year’s harvest as well as the expenses for the following year. This plummeted the farmer into a cycle of dependency that ended up leaving them with less overall food than before the Green Revolution took hold. (Note: We are currently hearing the same rhetoric about the “Genetic Revolution��? being the new way to end world hunger. To quote my wife Stacia, “Plants don’t need to be improved, diets and agricultural systems do.��?)
So, to come back to your question, the biggest area of impact that I have seen in the introduction of Permaculture in Malawi has been in helping to break this cycle of dependency and in giving options and alternatives back to the farmer. This has indeed had a significant impact on the nutrition and health of the farmers who choose to apply it. Many farmers are now realizing that they can have food all year long. This helps to eliminate the need for trying to store an entire year’s worth of food, it eliminates the need for trying to grow an entire year’s worth of food in a single 3-4 month rainy season, and it eliminates the “hungry season��?.
Unfortunately, one of our biggest challenges in facilitating Permaculture and nutrition trainings is the lack of follow-up. We are often requested and funded to do trainings around the country, but are seldom funded to go back in 6 months to a year to see what those farmers are doing with the information. We know that good things are happening out there through the feedback from volunteers and even through letters from the participants themselves. As for the true impact of our work and its impact on community health, we have no base-line data from which to calculate any findings, nor do we have any means for which to collect such information.
8. Besides improving the soil quality and producing food, how else has your garden affected your community? How has the garden affected you and your physical and mental health?
A lot of people think that we are crazy. Permaculture tends to go against many of the current practices like sweeping the soil bare, hoeing up the grass, cutting down all the trees, and burning. To many, a yard full of trees, foods, and medicines seems unkempt or possibly a throw back to a time when the wild things ruled and an area could be full of dangers such as lions, leopards, and snakes. This is an image that we are trying to break. Once people start to see the world through the “eyes��? of Permaculture, they start to see potential everywhere. Every inch of bare soil is a prospective sight for growing something useful to us as humans. We even use a lot of references to the Garden of Eden to help people see that ever since the beginning humans have associated the growth of a garden with beauty and paradise. The interesting thing is that once our demonstration plots have reached the point where we can do some landscaping, people actually begin to comment on how beautiful it is. It is only in the early stages when it seems untidy. In any case, our garden has definitely become a discussion point for the community. Even the people who tend to outwardly shun the ideas of Permaculture have been coming by our house to collect different seeds and medicines.
For Stacia and I personally, the garden represents a way for us to reconnect with an energy source that is greater than the sum of its parts. When teaching I liken it to singing in a choir. The choir has four parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Each of these parts rehearses diligently until they know their place and role. But, it is only when all of these parts are put back together that something magical happens. These four parts all add up to a fifth unseen, unexplainable, and yet beautiful part that we usually refer to as “music��?. This is the type of thing that we find in the garden. The more parts that are added, the more beautiful the music becomes.
9. Can you give us a brief description of how to start utilizing Permaculture in our own gardens and yards? Are there any websites or books that could assist someone who wants to become further involved?
When we teach about Permaculture, we always teach about the “concept��? of Permaculture rather than a set system of putting this plant next to this plant in order to maximize production. Permaculture is a system that works anywhere in the world. It is based on natural systems such as those you see in a forest. Your challenge is to find out what foods grow well where you are and start to set them up in a manner that mimics these natural systems, paying particular attention to the perennial plants (plants that will continue growing for several years). Start small and build up from there. Begin by considering all the components of the area with which you are working, i.e. soil fertility, water harvesting, sunlight, shade, etc. All of these things will help you determine the types of plants that you will choose. You wouldn’t put a cactus in a swamp, nor would you try to grow cranberries in a desert. These are the decisions that you can let nature help you make, what grows well in the conditions you have? Take a walk around, observe, learn, and share your findings with others. It’s amazing what a good teacher nature can be when we start to work with it rather than against it.
One of the main principles in Permaculture is that of a “guild��?. With humans, a guild is any group of people that come together to work towards a common goal. It is the same with a guild in Permaculture, only in Permaculture it consists of different plants that help each other in one way or another. There are seven components of a good guild that you can keep in mind if trying to utilize Permaculture in your own gardens or yards. They are as follows:
· Food—Legumes and nuts, fruits, vegetables, staples, fats, and foods from animals
· Plants that feed the soil—Legumes and organic matter that provide nutrients to the soil
· Climbers—Important for making the most of available space because they grow vertically
· Supporters—Plants that provide support to climbers and other plants
· Miners or diggers—Deep roots or tubers that open up the soil and/or bring minerals and nutrients to the surface
· Protectors—Plants that protect other things in the system (Repellents, attractors, live fencing, etc…)
· Groundcovers—Protects soil, provides shade, holds moisture, and suppresses growth of plants which you don’t want (‘weeds’)
There is a great deal of information on Permaculture available to the public. Any web search will bring up thousands of references throughout the world. One of the founders of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, has put out some good resources. His “Global Gardener��? video is one of special note. It shows how Permaculture can be adapted to different climates throughout the world. There are several books that can be found with an on-line search and contain good information for the beginning Permaculturalist. The following are a list of titles and resources that we have found useful:
· Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison with Reny Mia Slay
· Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual by Bill Mollison (more advanced)
· Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture by Rosemary Morrow
· Getting Started in Permaculture by Ross and Jenny Mars
· In Grave Danger of Falling Food (video) by Bill Mollison
· Permaculture in a Nutshell by Patrick Whitefield
· Permanent Publications (magazine) www.permaculture.co.uk
10. Where do you think the Permaculture movement is headed? What would you like to see happen in the future with Permaculture and developing nations? How do you and Stacia fit into the scheme?
There seems to be a global change in attitudes taking place towards environmental problems and their solutions. There are new types of sciences coming forward that are reflecting this change, things such as chaos theory, gaia theory, fractal geometry, etc. People are beginning to realize that we rely on this planet for our survival much more than we realized in the past. Every component of life is important right down to the smallest bacteria. As we lose these elements of life because of the extinction that we are creating, a piece of us dies with them. Hopefully it’s not too late to make the necessary changes.
As far a Permaculture goes, I personally don’t care what you call it. Many people tend to get to hung up on labels and begin to miss the big picture. Permaculture has already begun to get a bad reputation from people that don’t understand it and have linked it to a cult-like following. This is easy to understand when you meet people who practice Permaculture and are so excited about something that actually works and at the same time improves the health of the individual and the environment. But Permaculture isn’t an “either/or��? type of system, for instance either you use Permaculture or you destroy the environment. Permaculture is a set of principles that you can incorporate into your daily life, so whether it’s referred to as sustainable agriculture, organic farming, or simply being “environmental��? it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that we all start to do something to make this a better place to live. Permaculture just seems to put it all together better than anything I’ve come across yet.
I would love to see Permaculture principles adapted throughout the world, not just in developing countries. The problems that we see in developing countries are often more apparent to the rest of the world because they haven’t had the money or resources to cover them up, but many of the problems that are being faced today are universal in nature and often even worse in so called “developed��? countries. The prevalence of cancers and allergies in the United States, for instance, has reached epidemic proportions. This should be a sign to all of us that something is drastically wrong with the environment that we are living in and yet we continue to encourage corporate farming, create more waste than the rest of the world, and use all sorts of chemicals from cleaning agents to pesticides and dump many of them down our kitchen sink into our drinking water supply.
Permaculture could be incorporated into school curriculums and into city/municipal planning or zoning ordinances. It could be used by individual gardeners or commercial farmers, by community service clubs and churches. It could be a main component of all public areas including parks, reserves, or reservoirs. It could have a place in national policies and in the homes of families. It could be used to lessen the burden of hospital staff and it could be used to extend the quality of life for people. It could be used to create a sustainable future for generations to come or it could be ignored…it’s our choice.
As far as Stacia and I fitting into the scheme of things, we love what we are doing and we love living in Malawi. If that changes for some unforeseen reason, we would love to come back to the States and see where our passion for Permaculture can be put to use. Outside of that we are no more important or insignificant than any other component of this world that we live in.
11. What does your daughter think of the garden?
Nice of you to ask. Our daughter was born here in Malawi four years ago and is being raised in a traditional Malawian village, learning the local language of Chichewa and trying to carry things on her head. Her name is Khalidwe, which roughly translated means “good personality��?. Her middle name is Zikani, which means “firmly rooted in the earth��?. We hope that both of these names will have significance to her as she grows and develops her world view. Even at two and a half she is eager to learn about the garden and all of its components. Each day brings new opportunities to experience new and exciting things. It’s also fun for us to re-experience these things through her. She often tries to help plants seeds with us and already knows where the compost pile is and what kind of things go there. We hope that this early “environmentally conscious��? upbringing will help her to make sustainable decisions in the future. At the same time we are not forcing anything on her or trying to deprive her of anything. She even gets to watch the occasional Barney video!
12. What’s your favorite part of the garden or the gardening process?
For me here in Malawi that would have to be the rainy season. Throughout the dry season we water a few things, some things come into fruit while other things go dormant. When the rains come, however, its is literally an explosion of life. Plants, seeds, insects, birds, and animals all spring forth with renewed energy. The colors of the flowers unfolding are like watching fireworks in slow motion. Being surrounded by this type of energy is contagious, and people in general all seem happier and more content with life. That’s what it’s all about if you ask me.
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08.28.06
Posted in Water at 1:59 pm by Kristof
Here is an article that takes a look at water management using Permaculture principles. It seems that a lot of todays “natural” disasters have been made worse by our “un-natural” care of the environment. Places that experience massive flooding are the same places that often experience extreme drought, sometimes in the same year. The checks and balances that nature has provided for us are becoming more and more scarce as we deplete our natural resources. This article discusses some of the ways that Permaculture can assist with protecting and harvesting our water resources.
A Permaculture Look at Flooding
In 2002, we heard about massive destruction, displacement, and hardship that was caused by the floods in the Nsanje district in the south of the country. This was indeed a tragedy not only in terms of the suffering that it has caused the people there, but also in terms of the damage that has been done: the destruction of property, the loss of crops, environmental devastation, the damage to infrastructure, and the costs that will be needed for rescue operations, relocation, food aid, and sanitation concerns.
This situation, as bad as it was, provides us with a very important opportunity to think about whether this was just an “act of nature��? or rather something that can be prevented in the future. Water management is a very important concept in Permaculture. Without water our crops won’t grow, we can’t bathe, wash clothes or dishes, and without clean water to drink we would die very quickly. During the dry season, we are often in need of water as many of our rivers and boreholes run dry.
Permaculture offers us a very useful tool for water management. This is the four “S’s��?: STOP, SPREAD, SINK, and SHADE. Every drop of water that falls on our land should remain on our land. Therefore, the four S’s can be easily accomplished with the help of trees, plants, groundcover, root systems, contour ridging, and swales. All of these things help to STOP the flow of runoff, SPREAD it out, allow it to SINK into the soil, and then SHADE it so that it remains there for a long time into the dry season helping to keep our rivers running and our boreholes full.
When we eliminate many of these things through poor land management practices, we begin to see that the water from our land flows away very quickly causing soil erosion and gullies. As the water from our land meets the water flowing off of other people’s land, it will eventually form small streams that flow into larger streams, and then into rivers that flow towards the lakes and oceans. When these rivers fill up so quickly, the increasing amount of flooding that we are seeing along the lakeshore, and in low-lying areas like Nsanje, becomes inevitable. This runoff water also carries with it much of the valuable and nutritious topsoil that we need to grow healthy crops.
Are we practicing the four S’s in Malawi or not? Widespread deforestation has become a very common sight, massive burning during the dry season destroys the organic matter that can help to hold back the rains, and even the plants from each year’s harvest are gathered up and burned rather than being left to return to the soil that they came from. The flooding that we have seen in Nsanje this year can be blamed on all of us, for there is a saying in Permaculture that says, “We all live downstream.��? This means that no matter what we do, it will eventually come around to effect us all.
The effects of runoff water can easily be demonstrated by building three small slopes in the dirt. The first slope you can pack tightly and make smooth to represent a hillside that has been burnt during the dry season. The next slope you can still pack tightly but make small contour ridges along it to represent a maize field after the harvest has been finished and all the organic matter has been collected and burned. The third slope you can make into a “Permaculture��? slope. Don’t pack it down quite as tightly to show that healthy soil is soft and able to “breathe��?, put small rows of plants and grass into it to represent the trees, groundcover, and root systems that a good Permaculture plot will have all year round. You can even build small swales along this slope and cover them with mulch or compost. Now, take three same-sized containers of water and pour them down the slope from the top of each and see what happens. Notice the amount of runoff and soil erosion on the first two slopes compared to that of the last. This is an activity that can be used to teach people of all ages and it can help to show that we all have a small part to play in preventing situations like we saw in Nsanje this year. Remember, “Pang’ono pang’ono ndi mtolo��? (little by little makes a bundle).
We also need to remember that the result of our actions will have a direct impact on our living conditions. There was recently an article in the newspaper that reported flooding in the area around Chikwawa this year in areas that had never been flooded before. Instead of making the connection between poor land management practices and the flooding, the devastation was blamed on the work of witchcraft. We all have a role to play in teaching people about the importance of the four S’s of Permaculture—STOP, SPREAD, SINK, and SHADE. Even more importantly, we need to begin to apply it ourselves no matter where we live. As we near the end of this year’s rains, it gives us a great opportunity to get ready for next year’s.
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Posted in Food Security at 12:30 pm by Stacia
The following is an article on the food security crisis that has become chronic throughout much of Southern Africa. In fact, it has become such an annual event that it is now deemed the “hungry season” by many. This is the time of year when the food reserves from the last growing season run out and the current fields are not yet mature enough for harvesting. Ironically, this happens between November and March in Malawi, which also happens to coincide with our rainy season–in other words, the most agriculturally productive time of the year! This article was written by Stacia in January of 2006 and examines some of the issues surrounding food security in Malawi, as well as some of the solutions that Permaculture principles can offer.
Sustainable Food Crisis
January 2006
“In New Year messages, East African leaders warn that millions of people in the region face hunger because poor rains have affected vital crops and pasture.��?
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“In an ironic twist of fate, the drought-ravaged Nsanje district in southern Malawi experienced its worst flooding in almost half a century. At least 2,000 people were displaced as the river Ruo burst its banks to flood six villages…��?
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“In the northern region, rainfall distribution has been uneven and erratic. There are also reports of a windstorm in Nkhata Bay with people displaced and seeking shelter in churches and schools.��?
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Once again the news media are reporting about the ‘food’ crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, this year worse than the other years’ crises, but all the same, another annual crisis. We hear about rationing of food aid, the need for hundreds of metric tones of maize, and the potential for thousands of people to starve. The list of culprits includes drought, floods, poverty, not enough seed and synthetic fertilizer inputs, lack of government action, or the effects of HIV. Unfortunately, this is a pattern that continues year after year, with the exception that each year it gets worse. It seems like our development and relief structures have at least succeeded in creating a sustainable food crisis.
With the chronic pattern of food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa, are we really rethinking our strategies toward reversing this trend? Are we learning lessons from these patterns? It doesn’t seem like the majority are. Instead of re-thinking the solutions, programs are continuing with the same activities but just spending more money and time on them – it is like yelling the same message again, but louder, to a person who doesn’t speak your language; it won’t help, you just lose more energy in the process and confuse and possibly irritate the other person. Instead you need to learn the other person’s language.
Much to the glee of industrialized nations’ subsidized farmers who produce too much and need to move it out and to the companies who make synthetic fertilizers, programmes continue to handout food aid, seed, and synthetic fertilizer to address the food crisis and its list of contributing problems. There are thousands of people spending millions of dollars and expending massive amounts of energy and time on the wrong things.
People often blame the Weather:
Granted, climates are changing, but the floods and droughts aren’t solely the weather’s fault. Low rainfall doesn’t always cause a drought nor does heavy rainfall always cause a flood. It depends on the conditions on the ground as much as how much rain falls. Much of Sub-Saharan Africa is naturally a low rain climate - and it can be sporadically dry followed by a heavy rain, then dry and heavy rain again - that’s the weather’s pattern at our time in history and we should be planning for it.
I recently had an e-mail conversation with a group of people who make the maps of the rainfall in Malawi. They had sent me the map showing that almost the whole of Malawi, except for the Southern tip, had a normal rainfall pattern this last growing season. I asked them if there was a mistake, saying that I thought there was low rainfall as the media had reported ‘drought’. They replied that the map only shows the rain for the whole season, it doesn’t take into account the timing of the rain – the pattern of heavy rain followed by dry spells pattern. So I replied again saying “Then the problem was not the amount of rain we received; the problem was what we did with the rain when we got it.��?
So what are we doing with the scattered rain that we receive? Unfortunately, our shift in agriculture and life styles has drastically altered our environment, damaged our soil, and removed the diversity of plants and animals that used to help us cope with high and low amounts of rain. Areas that used to soak up rain and allow it to sink into the ground water, cleaning it and filtering it through the earth’s layers, are gone. Areas are now cleared of plants, trees and animals and ploughed every year, or paved with roads, or covered with buildings, or as is popular around Sub-Saharan Africa, swept and burned rock hard. In these conditions when there is only a little rain, the soil, plants, and trees become dry very quickly resulting in drought, and when there is a lot of rain, the soil can’t soak it up fast enough and the plants and trees aren’t there to help, resulting in flooding.
Last year at our house, which is also a demonstration plot for sustainable agriculture and other sustainable living systems, there was drought on all the pieces of land around us, but our land had no drought. Instead, it grew into a jungle of a wide variety of different foods, medicines, and building supplies. Our harvests were abundant when our neighbors suffered. We also spent less money, time and energy on our farm. Why? What was the difference between what we did and what our neighbors did?
The solutions are (1) to take care of our soil and (2) to create systems that can withstand the natural pattern of weather - and this is true for all areas around the world, the only difference is in the designs; each design will match its own local conditions. The soil must eat a wide variety of foods for it to be healthy – just like we need to eat a wide variety of foods for us to be healthy - and this cannot be achieved with synthetic chemical fertilizers or mono-cropped agriculture! Synthetic fertilizers are similar to a multivitamin pill or medication – they treat the plant only, but do not feed the soil; if the plant, tree or animal is left in a deficient environment, it will become unhealthy again. Mono-cropped agriculture provides us with a very limited nutrient base for our bodies and our soil, so each year both are depleted.
The key concepts we need for designing our areas are:
· Conserving the soil by covering it with organic matter (alive or dead) and reducing any disturbance to the soil structure, such as digging;
· Feeding the soil by having a wide variety of plants, trees, animals and insects living on it then returning to the soil at the end of their lives;
· Avoiding any synthetic poisons or chemicals that will disturb the things living on or in the soil;
· Choose a wide variety of plants, trees, and animals that are appropriate to the weather patterns in the area and to provide us with a wide variety of useful products (foods, medicines, clothing, etc.)
The solutions are all around us wherever we are. Start looking more closely at the environment around you, starting at your own home and moving outwards. There is a lot of waste that we send down the sewer, into drains or into trash piles that could be re-designed to be a resource to help buffer low and heavy rainfall. There are a lot of ways that we can design our living areas, such as:
· Using a variety of different useful trees lining the roadsides, instead of just ornamental species;
· Creating road designs that harvest water along the edges instead of pushing it downhill to accumulate at the bottom and eroding as it goes;
· Planting parks full of useful species where people can pick fruits as they enjoy the park;
· Filling agricultural fields with many different species including inter-cropping with trees and other permanent species;
· Reducing the digging of soil by inter-planting with species that dig deep (trees for example) or wide (yams for example), species that dig to different depths in the soil, and by using mulching;
· Designing office complexes, schools, homes and other buildings to harvest water and to reuse water as many times as possible;
· Reducing and eventually eliminating the use of synthetic poisons and chemicals and instead using improved designs to prevent disease and insect damage and to boost harvests;
· Converting decorative flower gardens and patches of grass into decorative edible landscapes;
· Working with your community to harvest all the organic waste at the open market, the supermarket, restaurants and other food selling and eating places;
· Instead of sweeping the dirt, design walkways and use the dirt to make gardens appropriate to your area;
· Share writings like this with your colleagues along with a personal note from yourself;
· Try a new local food once a week (maybe you will like it so much that it will continue to be part of your diet!);
· Add a local seed variety, along with education, to the packets that you provide to farmers / gardeners.
The ideas are endless and they are feasible! You can add new ideas in small steps to your own life and then start sharing the ideas and results with others. If you are tired of the sustainable food crisis, join us in redesigning our plants, trees, and animals to achieve health and wealth.
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Posted in Food Security at 12:25 pm by Stacia
The following article was written by us after the bad “hungry season” of 2001 in Malawi. It talks about the dangers of putting “all our eggs in one basket” by our over-dependence on maize as the primary staple food crop. We have hundreds of foods to be choosing from to farm, eat, and market, but we still (worldwide) depend on just a handful of crops to meet our nutritional needs. Instead of promoting more diverse diets, we spend our energy trying to genetically engineer one food to give us more nutrients (as in the example of “Golden Rice” engineered to contain Vitamin A). In a country such as Malawi with a 12-month growing season, access to sunshine and water, and over 600 foods that we could be growing, it’s a shame that millions go hungry when one food (maize) fails.
Waiting For the Real Crisis
By Kristof & Stacia Nordin (2002)
There is not a food crisis in Malawi. That seems to be a very strong statement to make considering all of stories that the media has been spreading lately about large numbers of people in Malawi starving to death. The estimated death toll attributed to hunger this year has been in the hundreds. Compare this with the statistics of AIDS or Malaria-related deaths and one realizes that a great deal more Malawians die each week from these ailments. We have personally seen many villages where people are begging for food, villagers who look emaciated and undernourished, and even people who have collapsed on the road and died only to be left there until the following morning. So how can the statement be made that there is not a food crisis in Malawi? Because when one looks at the bigger picture it is clear to see that the only true crisis right now is a “Maize Crisis”.
Stand on any hill in Malawi and take a look around. What do you see? Vast amounts of land that have been cleared for the cultivation of one crop-Maize. As we approach the end of the rainy season, you can see field after field of maize that has been planted for this coming year’s “food” supply. Many of these fields were not even worth the effort that was put into them. The maize is often yellow, immature, and will not yield more than a handful of edible “food”. This is due to several factors, the main one being that we are starving the soil. Just as humans need to eat, so does the land. Year after year we see people eliminating the natural return of organic matter to their soils due to burning, over-clearing of crop land, and over-sweeping near their houses. Take another look from your hill-top view and look for trees. You will probably see a few small patches dotting the landscape and realize that the only trees left in many areas are in the graveyards. A symbolic reality of where our disconnection with the cycles of nature has brought us to. As our soils have become so depleted, and the remaining nutrients are often eroded away from the sun, wind, and rains the only viable solution is to compensate our losses with the use of chemical fertilizers. The few that can afford these inputs may end up with a harvest of some significance, but once the farmer has sold off enough to recover these costs, their yields may not be adequate for the year. For the growing number of people that can’t afford fertilizers, they have tried to make the best of it and have ended up with next to nothing.
So we are in a maize crisis this year, but why? Last year’s growing season was relatively good. If anything, the rains lasted a bit too long and some of the harvests were lost to rotting in the fields. As people harvested their maize, they were quick to sell their yields at a low price to recover some of the money that went into their farming endeavors. As the personal maize supplies ran dry in the months leading up to this year’s harvest, people tried to buy back the maize that they had sold only to find shortages due to the exportation of Malawi’s maize to other countries, and extremely high prices for that which was left. So, unable to afford or find suitable maize supplies, people began to talk about hunger. But was this really “hunger” or a lack of one staple food? We have personally seen many people coming to beg for food but turning down the offerings of fruits, vegetables, or other staples like millet or yams. The only thing that was wanted was maize flour. Does this constitute hunger or starvation when people refuse food? We have seen market vendors selling potatoes, millet, sorghum, beans, fruits, pumpkins, and other vegetables and yet complaining of “hunger”. What will the vendors do with the money made from these “food” sales? Answer: buy “food”, meaning maize.
My wife and I have worked for five years on learning, utilizing, teaching about, and celebrating the local food options in Malawi. We have learned about over five hundred foods that can grow, be harvested, and eaten on a year-round basis. Five hundred foods in a country that is supposed to be in a “food crisis”! There needs to be a huge shift in the way that we think if there is ever to be true food security in Malawi. This shift needs to come from every level of society. Currently, the use of any food other than maize is seen as not having “eaten”. People can be full from a large balanced diet comprised of each of the food groups that the Ministry of Agriculture is currently promoting: vegetables, fruits, legumes & nuts, staples, fats, and animal foods, but if maize nsima has not been a part of this meal people will say they have not eaten. All levels of society have helped to promote this misconception of “food”: government officials talk about the distribution of “starter packs” to boost next year’s food supplies, but these starter packs only consist of maize seed and fertilizer. NGO’s and Donor agencies promote food-aid, nutrition clinics, and agricultural programs that focus on maize. Religious leaders petition the government to help those who are hungry by importing maize. Agricultural researchers spend vast amounts of money, time, and energy on developing higher-yielding types of hybrid maize seed. Maize alone can not meet the population’s nutritional requirements. It cannot build the healthy immune systems that are needed for disease reduction. It can not give back to the soil everything that it takes year after year. So, after all of this emphasis on maize as the solution are we any closer to sustainable food security, or have we been ignoring the other options that are available to us?
Recently, there has been some talk coming from the government level about crop diversification. Usually these types of comments are attached to the end of a long speech about the importance of maize, but at least people are beginning to talk. Crops such as cassava and sweet potatoes are usually mentioned for helping to avoid the effects of drought, pest damage, plant diseases, and to aid in the increase of food security during hard times. This is fantastic! But what about the other 49 staples, 146 fruits, 28 legumes & nuts, 46 fats, and 283 vegetables? One of the main problems is that these local foods have become stigmatized. If a family is incorporating local foods into their diet, it is seen not as “forward thinking” and “food security”, but rather as that family having fallen on hard times. Villagers chastise each other and even destroy gardens when somebody tries to diversify their food options. Head masters of schools have refused to plant fruit trees around their buildings on the premise that “the students might eat the fruits”. Civil servants have cut down fruit-bearing trees and clear vast amounts of edible vegetation so that Ministry Officials can set up a shelter and give speeches on the importance of food security for World Food Day.
The incorporation of local food plants could help to put an end to current food security problems, vastly improve nutrition, and improve the soils in the areas that they are grown. Many of these foods could be incorporated beneficially into existing maize fields helping the crops to grow even better. Others could be incorporated near homes helping to maximize and capitalize on the limited amount of land that people have to work with and the resources that come from living areas (i.e. water, wastes, and nutrients). There could be year-round yields of foods even during years when maize won’t grow well. There should never be a “hungry season”. If you don’t believe that this is possible, ask Ethel Kathumba in Chitedze who feeds herself and her five daughters from the foods that she grows around her house without the need for chemical fertilizers. With the money that she has saved from this type of farming and the profits from selling excess foods, she has purchased a plot of land for herself and her family. Ask Lovemore Mkunkha, a Forestry Extension worker from Karonga who has been teaching people how to organically improve their soils and diversify their diets for many years now. His soil is so rich now that people steal it to mud their houses in order to obtain the sought after black color. Ask Dr. Glyvyns Chinkuntha from Dowa who has received an honorary Doctorate in Agriculture because he long ago realized the earth’s potential. He now supports his family and surrounding community members with the profits made from selling his produce and by sharing his knowledge with others.
Malawi is rich! Rich with potential, rich with natural resources, and rich with the capability to determine its own future. We need to start protecting what we have and utilizing the abundant gifts that are around us. We need to start asking ourselves the question, “How long will we look from our hilltops at the fields of maize.waiting for a truly devastating growing season.waiting for the real crisis to begin?”
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07.20.06
Posted in Genetic Engineering at 5:45 pm by Stacia
Here is an article that was written in 2001 when Malawi was facing a difficult year in terms of food and nutrition security. Much of the food aid that was being brought into the country (and neighboring countries) at that time was genetically modified maize seed. The article looks at whether this new technology is appropriate for advancing agricultural practices throughout the world.
A Permaculture Look at Genetic Engineering
There has been a lot in the news lately about advancements being made in the field of genetic engineering. This technology is giving scientists and researchers the ability to change the characteristics of living organisms by altering their genetic makeup. This new science has many implications for humans and animals, but currently much of the research is being focused on the creation of new varieties of plants, which will have certain desirable characteristics. These characteristics can generally be grouped into three main categories: higher yields, pest or disease resistance, and nutritional modification.
Proponents of this new technology claim that genetically altered plants will have the ability to help end hunger and malnutrition in the world, while critics of genetic engineering often focus on the unforeseen dangers to people who eat these new foods. There are many people who are concerned that there has not been enough research on the long-term effects that these plants may have on consumers. The validity of these concerns may certainly deserve further investigation, but at the same time they seem to be taking emphasis away from the bigger picture.
Permaculture encourages us to “see the whole picture��? by observing and learning from what nature has to teach us. We also need the courage to learn from our mistakes. About 50 years ago, we began to hear about a new type of agriculture that was labeled the “Green Revolution”. The Green Revolution was the beginning of our efforts to increase food production through the use of hybridized plants and chemical inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. At the time, this “new” technology was promoted as having the capacity to end the world’s hunger and nutritional problems, just as genetic engineering is being promoted today. These higher yielding crops were introduced around the world, along with new methods of agriculture that were foreign to many of the traditional methods that were being used.
What many farmers have found in this short period of time, especially in countries such as Malawi, is that as they have adopted these new methods of agriculture many have become locked into a cycle of dependency. Hybridized seeds cannot usually be saved for replanting, so farmers that used to be able to save local seeds from season to season are now forced into purchasing new seeds for each year’s crops. Modern agricultural practices have replaced traditional methods of restoring soil fertility, so farmers are now dependent on purchasing chemical fertilizers to make up for this loss. Monocropping has disrupted the natural balances of pest control, forcing farmers to rely on chemical pesticides. Traditional methods of agriculture that used to rely on nature to provide everything that people needed—free of charge—have been exchanged in favor of expensive and labor intensive practices. To meet the rising costs of these inputs, many people end up selling off much of their harvested food, leaving them with less than they had before they made the switch to the Green Revolution. This shift in agricultural practices has also created a situation where the majority of people attempt to meet each year’s food requirements in a single season. It has now become such a common occurrence in Malawi for food reserves to run out while people are waiting for the next harvest to mature that it has been labeled the “hungry season��?. In this sense, the Green Revolution has actually done more to foster the problems of hunger and malnutrition than it has to end it.
The other thing that has happened is that an “over-emphasis” has been placed on single-crop agriculture to meet all of the nutritional demands of the world’s population. In a book that was published in 1984 by the National Research Council in the United States entitled Amaranth: Modern Prospects for an Ancient Crop, it states that:
“Most of the world now receives the bulk of its calories and protein from a mere 20 species—notably cereals such as wheat, rice, maize, millets, and sorghum; root crops such as potato, sweet potato, and cassava; legumes such as beans, peanuts (groundnuts), and soybeans; and sugarcane, sugar beet, and bananas. These plants are the main bulwark between mankind and starvation. It is a dangerously small larder from which to feed the planet.��?
This limited focus has caused people to forget about the foods that they used to eat. Many of these “traditional��? foods contain a much higher nutritional value than the ones that are now grown, have had many years to adapt to their surroundings, and can provide food on a year-round basis rather depending on a single unpredictable rainy season. Our Permaculture Nutrition project here in Malawi has identified almost 400 of these local food plants that could easily meet all of the nutritional requirements of the country’s citizens on a year-round basis without the need for foreign intervention or biotechnology.
As we have removed agriculture from the cycles of nature, we seem to be finding many unforeseen problems. When seen through the “eyes��? of Permaculture, this push toward genetic modification seems to be one more step in the wrong direction. There is plenty of food and land available in the world to feed our growing population, but it will take a rethinking of the current systems that we are using:
· Higher yields can easily be achieved when one compares the overall production of a year-round mixed crop system to the single-season monocropped methods that are currently being used. With this in mind we shouldn’t need to genetically modify plants for higher yields, we simply need to use the ones that we’ve always had available to us more wisely.
· Insects and diseases become naturally managed as the balance returns to the land and we begin to take advantage of the plants that have adapted over many years to their various predators. This eliminates the need for genetically modified “resistant��? plants.
· Growing and eating a wide variety of healthy plant foods on a year-round basis can eliminate nutritional deficiencies. This takes away the need to genetically alter single food crops to include all of the nutrients that a person should be receiving. Trying to meet all of our nutritional needs through the use of a limited handful of plants is not only unhealthy for us as humans, but also for the environment from which we receive our food.
Permaculture focuses on the wide variety of plants, animals, insects, and microorganisms that all work together to ensure a healthy environment for growing food. It also places humans back into this cycle. If we are willing to work with nature rather than against it, we will begin to see that we have everything that we need to keep our environment and ourselves healthy for a long time into the future. When we start to think in this direction, the question of genetic engineering changes from, “Is it safe for us to use?��? to “Do we even need it in the first place?��? The safety of a system like Permaculture is seldom questioned, unless it is in the context of Permaculture’s founder, Bill Mollison when he only half-jokingly said that, “We may be in danger of falling food.��? If we can begin to see the world through the “eyes��? of Permaculture, we will also see that the solutions to many of our current “problems��? have been right in front of us this whole time and no further away than the soil outside of our front door.
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