Farming in Malawi

Well the last 2 weeks just flew by and I was all over Malawi so I’ll do my best to recall my adventures here.

I’ve noticed how hard it is to come to Malawi and “help”. I’ve talked about how the project didn’t work out because of all the bureaucracy but it seems to pervade many areas and it’s ingrained in the culture. Even trying to facilitate a monetary donation from the States to purchase medical equipment here is not met with much excitement. In fact, responses to my questions on how to complete such a transaction have been very slow. It surprises me that even when offering cash does not ignite any motivation. I don’t know if they don’t see it the way I do, in that there are people dying every day because of simple deficits that even a small donation could go a long way in filling. It’s strange to me but brings me back to wondering about if they really want the help of outsiders. Is it pride? It sure seems so in the case of the current president who has gone to great lengths to put his country in a much worse position and cut ties to governments who had been offering a great deal of help. Traveling around, I can’t help but wonder where this incredible poverty in the statistics is, I just haven’t seen the degree of what I was expecting. In a country with the highest child HIV infection rates, where are they? I’ve been told they are only in certain areas, one I have not seen. In the cities and in the villages, I’ve been met with great kindness and smiles. I haven’t seen the degree of malnutrition I was expecting either. However, this is an area where the solution already exists inside the country.

I noticed the other day the housekeeper, who lives in the attached apartment here, and her family sorting through their stockpile of maize. I talked to them about their diet somewhat and their routines for dealing with the maize in Malawi. It turns out there are deeply routed cultural perceptions of food here in Malawi. People here tend to think only of maize as food. In surveys of families here, when asked if they were hungry and if they had food, many answered no despite having many different fruits and vegetables in the home. If asked these questions when they did not have any maize, they thought they were starving and had no food despite having alternatives. Although the climate in Malawi provides the environment for a year round crop of many different foods, the society here relies heavily on maize production and so suffers from a “hungry” season when maize is not being harvested and the previous year’s stockpile has run out. The family living here keeps their stockpile in their entry way outside and there were dozens of sacks of maize each weighing in excess of 50kg. The problem with this long storage is infestation. They showed me the reason for their pouring over their entire supply over the course of many days as a small insect that burrows inside each kernel eating the precious flesh. They set out to empty each bag, shake out as much debris as possible a few handfuls at a time with a large plate, transfer the result to a new pile where an insecticide was added, then repackaged in the sacs and sewn shut. This was a clearly a labor and time intensive undertaking, making me wonder how much better their time could be used for food that is much healthier.  When taking the family to play soccer later, I noticed one of the daughters coughing a great deal from having inhaled so much fine debris in the process of sorting through the maize. I was distraught by this to think that not only were they going to so much trouble to save a relatively worthless crop but also it was also detrimental to them. I will buy them masks at the very least.

I had the opportunity last week to hook up with a local American family who has lived here for over a decade since their stint in the Peace Corps. They have lived in their current site for about 8 years in a village west of the capital. They live Permaculture, which is a fascinating approach to living that I was unaware of before my visit. This has been the most impressive experience I have had in Malawi and the potential they have demonstrated in their farming and growing methods blew me away.

They gave me a tour of their grounds and showed me how far they had come since they moved into their home. The are slowly changing the local culture and spreading their methods which anyone can easily see would solve most of the hunger and food problems in the entire country and can be applied all over the world. They are growing over 200 foods on their property! 200! I was most impressed by how much thought went into the design of their gardens. Every plant, every object had a reason for its location. The common themes in Permaculture are customization for your location and climate and self-sufficiency. There was not a lot of money being spent on fancy seeds, not on fertilizer, not on water. They used many locally sold foods to grow; they collected rainwater in clever ways, like using their roof as a giant collection pan. Their outhouse was of the composting variety – where with use it is mixed with ashes and debris from the yard. The benefits were immediately apparent: no smell! On top of it, literally, they were growing more food so there was no wasted space. They rotated a few piles of this compost and by the time one would fill up, another would be ready to be used as fertilizer. This also precluded the need to dig huge holes in the ground every so often to rotate the outhouse. Their chicken coop held the chickens overnight but during the day rather then letting them run around the neighborhood and reek havoc like so many I’ve seen here, they are held in a cage that is rotated around the grounds to provide another source of fertilizer. They have several homes on site that provide free housing to families who agree to maintain their own garden and practice Permaculture. Meeting people living like this and doing the work they do gives me faith in humanity and reason for optimism when pondering the future of this country as well as the world.