Nourishing the Planet

Kristof compares his farm now, where over 200 species of plants grow thanks to the use of permaculture, to the land in 2003 when it was dry and contained very few plants. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

This is the final in a four-part series about my visit to Stacia and Kristof Nordin’s permaculture project in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Travel anywhere in Malawi and you’ll see people sweeping—the sidewalks, the floors of their houses, and the bare dirt outside their homes. And while the sweeping makes everything look tidy, it’s also one of the major causes of damage to soils in the country. Because sweeping compacts soils, leaving it without any organic matter, erosion is widespread and the soil has very little nutrients. As a result, crops—especially corn—in Malawi rely heavily on the use of artificial fertilizers.

Kristof and Stacia Nordin have been working in Malawi to help educate farmers that “tidy” yards and gardens aren’t necessarily better for producing food or the environment. Stacia works for the German Technical Co-operation GTZ, while Kristof runs the farm and is a community facilitator. Their home is used as a demonstration plot for permaculture methods that incorporate composting, water harvesting, intercropping and other methods that help build organic matter in soils, conserve water, and protect agricultural diversity.

“Design,” says Kristof, “is key in permaculture,” meaning that everything from the garden beds to the edible fish pond to the composting toilet have an important role on their property.  And while their neighbors have been skeptical of the Nordins’ unswept yard, they’re impressed by the quantity—and diversity—of food grown by the family. More than 200 indigenous fruits and vegetables are grown on the land, providing a year round supply of food to the Nordins and their neighbors.

In addition, they’re working with the three families who live in houses on the property to practice permaculture techniques around their homes and have built an edible playground, where children can play and learn about different indigenous fruits.  More importantly, the Nordins are showing that by not over sweeping, people can get more out of the land than just maize.

Such practices will become even more important as drought, flooding, other effects of climate change continue to become more evident in Malawi and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

For more about permaculture, check out Chapter 6, “From Agriculture to Permaculture”  in State of the World 2010, which was released today.

Danielle with Kamuturaki Seremos, Executive Director, Uganda Fisheries and Fish Conservation Association (UFFCA) (photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

Seremos Kamuturaki, Executive Director of the Uganda Fisheries & Fish Conservation Association (UFFCA), says he runs a “monopoly.” There’s no other advocacy group, he says, giving a voice to the fishers and fishing communities surrounding Lake Victoria (the largest lake in Africa), Lake Albert, or Lake Edward.

Like the pastoralist communities we’ve been writing about, policy makers have had a tendency to ignore the plight of fishing communities. One reason for this, says Mr. Kamuturaki, is because “government agencies are afraid to go into the water,” both literally and figuratively. For people that didn’t grow up in fishing villages, like Mr. Kamuturaki, there’s a fear of the water, he says, that prevents them from understanding the challenges fishermen and fisherwomen face. That’s why he’s been working since the 1990s to help gain rights for fishing communities, while also developing fisheries policies that increase income and protect fish populations.

Although fishers have an abundance of resources, they still tend to be among the poorest in Uganda. Government run fisheries management policies were supposed to help give them a voice in decision-making, but corruption has stifled these efforts, leading to food insecurity and overfishing from the lakes.

And the lack of representation for women members of the fishing communities leaves many of them and their children without a source of income and food. Because of the growth in fish exports in Uganda, women are now competing against multi-national companies for fish for their families.

In some cases, says Mr. Kamuturaki, women are forced to “befriend” male fishers and exchange “sex for fish” in order to get food. Not surprisingly, this has helped encourage the spread of HIV/AIDS in fishing communities, where the virus is spreading rapidly.

But UFFCA is working on a pilot project with four women’s groups to help them become less dependent on both men and fish. Although they’re helping women buy boats and nets for fishing, UFFCA is also helping them diversify their incomes, by encouraging small-scale poultry and other livestock production. These projects, says Mr. Kamuturaki, take very little funding, but can have huge benefits and he’s hoping to get more funding to scale them up.

He hopes to “show the world that fishing communities need support” and that they are important for both increasing food security and protecting an important natural resource.

"Vertical gardens:" a version of a micro garden being used in Kibera, Kenya to grow vegetables.

For the past few months, we’ve been collecting information about agricultural innovations from all over the world (survey in English and French). We shared the initial responses in September but continue to receive interesting information and recommendations from farmers, NGOs, research groups, and policymakers in a multitude of countries. Below are a few tidbits we’d like to share:

From our friends at the World Vegetable Center in Arusha, Tanzania, which Danielle plans to visit later this month: “The world currently depends on a few exotic vegetable species such as tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, cauliflower, etc., and yet hundreds of other species of indigenous vegetables exist but are not properly exploited. In many cases they are much more nutrient-dense than the common exotics, which is of substantive importance in areas in which malnutrition — both under-nutrition and obesity — are serious problems. The difficulty at present resides in the fact that seed of such species are difficult to get, breeding programs are rare or absent, and the supporting agronomic research to maximize their quality and performance has not received sufficient investment.

This innovation needs both a change in policy environment by governments and other supporters of agricultural research to embrace a much greater investment in crop diversity rather than relying on funding only a few staple crops…. [T]he introduction of improved indigenous vegetables has a considerable chance of not only allowing farmers to grow and market themselves out of poverty but also to ensure that the poor, vulnerable, and disadvantaged and their families have a much better chance of attaining a sensible balanced diet than at present.”

From a member of our Advisory Group in Senegal: “The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) introduced the Micro Gardens in Senegal. Rodale International was contracted to train women and implement micro gardens in neighborhoods in Thies. The practice rapidly spread in Thies and other cities. A medical doctor from the Fann Hospital in Dakar established a micro garden and is now feeding his patients and monitoring its impact on their health and recovery.”

From the International Rural Poultry Centre and Kyeema Foundation in Mozambique: “Mortality due to Newcastle Disease (ND) is a major constraint to village chicken production and, consequently, impacts on household food security and livelihood…. With support from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the European Union, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the FAO, the International Rural Poultry Centre is supporting veterinary laboratories to produce quality vaccine and veterinary services [and] local NGOs and communities to implement ND vaccination campaigns…. Impact studies have demonstrated a significant increase in village chicken flock size, and poultry consumption and sale in participating households. As women and children are frequently the owners and carers of village chickens, they benefit directly from the vaccination program. Increased village chicken production also contributes to wildlife conservation and HIV/AIDS mitigation.”

From Premier Organic Farms Corporation in the United States: “Premier’s Pod Unit is a Closed-Loop Food Tilapia Fish RAS (recirculation aquaculture system) that provides a nutrient source to grow a Vegetables & Food Production greenhouse system, which in turn filters water through root uptake; it then re-cycles purified water back into fish tanks for re-use. Rainfall is harvested to conserve water and reduce system water requirements. The Pod Unit is designed to grow organic vegetables and foodstuffs based on regional needs. The system uses approx. 70% less water than a conventional farming system, with subsequent water conservation accumulation each time the water is filtered and re-cycled through the system. The fish produce nitrogen-rich water used as the nutrient and water source for growing vegetables; the vegetable root system filters the nitrogen out of the water creating a symbiotic relationship between the two growing segments. Methane gas biofuels from excess fish effluent can be used to produce electricity to operate the system. The system is also designed for adaptation for use with solar and wind power, or can use downstream scrubbed/filtered waste energy from power plants in the form of steam and water.”

From Martindale Farm in Zambia: “Holistic Management (started by Allen Savory) came about to deal with environmental degradation but has potential to reverse global warming as well. It has been most applicable to grazing land but the principles can be applied to anything successfully.”

From Rainbow Sustainable Solutions in the Netherlands: “[One practice is] turning coconut waste into added-value products like cattle feed, fish feed, and fertilizers. Continuing R&D in the Netherlands includes the establishment of a certification system. Through a fermentation process, coconut waste is turned into cattle feed and fish feed, which makes it possible to set up cattle farms and aquaculture in coconut regions.”

Stay tuned for more updates from the survey, and please fill it out or pass it on to others who might be interested!