November 27, 2005: Headlines: COS - Malawi: Agriculture: Permaculture: Toronto Star: The concept is called "permaculture establishing agriculture that lasts and the Nordins have become advocates in the nine years since they arrived in Malawi as Peace Corps volunteers from the United States
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November 27, 2005: Headlines: COS - Malawi: Agriculture: Permaculture: Toronto Star: The concept is called "permaculture establishing agriculture that lasts and the Nordins have become advocates in the nine years since they arrived in Malawi as Peace Corps volunteers from the United States
The concept is called "permaculture establishing agriculture that lasts and the Nordins have become advocates in the nine years since they arrived in Malawi as Peace Corps volunteers from the United States
Kristof Nordin is ready for visitors. The dining room table in his modest house west of Lilongwe, Malawi's capital, is covered with dozens of Ziploc bags containing beans, fruit, legumes and other indigenous foodstuffs that he and his wife, Stacia, have collected and dried.
The concept is called "permaculture establishing agriculture that lasts and the Nordins have become advocates in the nine years since they arrived in Malawi as Peace Corps volunteers from the United States
Pushing the `permaculture' solution
MAIZE | There are alternatives
Nov. 27, 2005. 01:00 AM
DAVID WIGHTMAN
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Kristof Nordin is ready for visitors. The dining room table in his modest house west of Lilongwe, Malawi's capital, is covered with dozens of Ziploc bags containing beans, fruit, legumes and other indigenous foodstuffs that he and his wife, Stacia, have collected and dried.
Once or twice a month, groups from local schools and other institutions tour the house and grounds, which the Nordins, both 37, have developed as a model for how indigenous plants can be used to feed people even at the most drought-ravaged times of the year.
At the front of the house, a bed of much-used herbs grows in the shade of the veranda, protected by small wire cages. At the side of the house, a water garden supports toads, a major pest controller, and edible water plant species. The garden also serves to cool the surrounding area through evaporation.
In plant beds, upside-down beer bottles filled with water serve to irrigate some plants, while a submerged, unglazed flower pot gradually releases water to others.
In the garden, lemongrass, aloes, fruit trees and other food plants have been primed for the rainy season that began this month.
Surrounding the whole operation is a live fence of trees, shrubs and cactus that the Nordins hope will grow up and keep out the neighbourhood goats.
Whatever the conditions here in southern Malawi, even when everything has dried up,the garden flourishes.
"There was drought all around us, supposedly," says Nordin. "But we had to cut back the growth to let sunshine in."
The concept is called "permaculture establishing agriculture that lasts and the Nordins have become advocates in the nine years since they arrived in Malawi as Peace Corps volunteers from the United States.
"Stacia and I weren't even into agriculture when we got here," says Nordin. "We learned everything from Malawians."
The Nordins studied the care and feeding of all those native plants that Mallawians had used for centuries for food, medicine and other applications.
So far, they've compiled a list of 378 food plants.
"There's so much potential for people to grow these foods year-round," says Nordin. But, there's a catch, he cautions.
"These foods are 100-per-cent stigmatized. These are the things that come up and compete with the maize, so they're throwing them away."
This all may seem ironic, given that Malawi is facing its most serious food crisis in years.
But the majority of people here have come to reject staples other than maize. They turn up their noses at anything but corn and don't want to be seen eating local foods for fear they'll be considered too poor to buy "proper" vegetables like carrots and cabbage.
There was a time that people here thrived on sorghum, millet, insects and vegetables that are now seen as weeds.
Nordin says Malawians were not encouraged to think for themselves or use local knowledge, even after independence from Britain in 1964. The late dictator, Kamuzu Banda, told his people that maize was the way to prosperity and mandated a significant proportion of land to be sown with corn.
With an ever-growing reliance on donor food aid and fertilizers, Malawians face increasing food insecurity and what many development workers here term "donor dependence."
"People have been ingrained with a give-me attitude," laments Nordin, who also points to a brighter side to the picture.
About 50 model gardens are now growing, he says, and some schools and workplaces are starting their own small-scale permaculture projects.
And he thinks necessity could cause more Malawians to try something new something that's actually based on ancient ideas.
"It's about taking what the grandparents knew and improving on it," says Nordin. "In these harder years, people are listening more."
David Wightman
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Story Source: Toronto Star
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Malawi; Agriculture; Permaculture
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