MALAWI PERMACULTURE PRACTICES

LOVE’S HARVEST One Village at a Time

Permaculture Practices were first introduced to Malawi by June Walker who mentored Stacia and Kristof Nordin. Stacia then through her work in the American Peace Corp in Malawi and subsequent teaching and spreading of the Permaculture message in Malawi has become the epicenter for Permaculture in Malawi. In 2005 Stacia codified Malawi Permaculture Practices in her book titled Low Input Food & Nutrition Security – Growing & Eating More - Using Less. Anglican Permaculture Teacher Pastor Joseph Chawawa developed his advanced knowledge of Permaculture Practices working with and learning from Stacia Nordin. Stacia can be reached at World Food Programme Malawi, Post Office Box 30571, Lilongwe, Malawi, e-mail: [email protected].

Permaculture Practices enrich the soil, conserve water resources and use plants in a system of interconnected mutual benefit. Permaculture Practices are organic, and as one Malawi lady pointed out, Permaculture is the way of my grandparents. Love’s Harvest is spreading the tenets of thriving Malawian Permaculture one family at a time, one village at a time. Helping People to Help Themselves.

Enriching the Soil: The first step in Permaculture Practices is to enrich the soil: Healthy Soils, Healthy Food and Healthy Communities. Women start their Kitchen Gardens by enclosing a space generally twenty feet by twenty feet with a four foot high fence made from natural materials. The fence is a continuous wall which prevents chickens, rabbits and goats from entering the Garden. The process of renewing the soil then begins: the soil is lightly turned to a depth of three inches, covered with plant material, kept moist and left for three weeks. Vegetables seeds are planted keeping the moist plant material in place with an intermixing of vegetables; this intermixing is called a Permaculture Guild. A topping of manure is then applied. Seeds are planted over a two-month period so the Kitchen Garden is always producing an array of vegetables ready for harvest. The inter-planting of legumes throughout the Garden adds nitrogen to the soil, which is constantly enriched with the addition of manure, composite and ash from cooking fires. The soil is kept covered with plant materials and kept moist, and manure is gathered from beneath the raised goat houses.

Conserving Water Resources: Grey water from the household is used to water the plants in the Kitchen Garden. Soapy water can have its chemical nature changed by adding ash from the cooking fire and then the water can be used in the garden. Along with the walkways between the planting beds, the soil is kept covered with plant materials; this practice helps to maintain the moisture in the soil. Water runoff from roofs is often channeled to the Kitchen Garden. Fish Ponds are often installed, and the water from the fish pond as it percolates into the soil raises the water table in the adjoining area. These water conservation practices require fewer trips to the community well. If well water is convenient or if there is a stream that runs in the dry season, then water can be supplied to the Kitchen Garden year round and it can be a source of a supply of abundant vegetables throughout the year.

Using plants in a system of interconnected mutual benefit. In her book Stacia Nordin lists 278 different types of vegetables available in Malawi. Kofi Annan‘s Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has funded a seed bank in Malawi to increase the diversity and quality of seeds available to Malawian farmers. Stakeholders in the One Village a Time Program are taught to plant a diversity of highly nutritious vegetables. Corn, the stable crop of Malawi, is discouraged since corn meal is low in nutritional value. No pesticides are used in the Kitchen Gardens. Onions, garlic and lemon grass are planted between the vegetables to ward off pests. Ash is added to water, and this mixture protects the green leaves of the vegetables from insects.

Permaculture Practices are in harmony with the natural cycles of the earth, producing nutritious and diverse foods in abundance. We are creating healthy communities one vegetable at a time.

A Permaculture Kitchen Garden has a variety of vegetables grown in a system of interconnected mutual benefit.