Sustainable Agriculture

Like many countries in the region, Malawi has a food security problem. Malawi made the headlines of the NY Times late last year for ignoring the advice of the World Bank and subsidizing fertilizer for the farmers. This move (in addition to having the ideal amount of rain) helped them avoid severe famine and even get to the point where they were able to sell maize to their neighbors and the World Food Program. However, what this article didn't talk about was why the soil in Malawi is so depleted (the farmers rarely grow anything but maize, year after year, and burn the fields) or the ubiquitous malnutrition. The maize may fill bellies but does not contain many nutrients (especially after it's ground down to the point that it is fine enough to make nsima flour).

About 30 years ago, Glyvyns Chinkhuntha was a student at the Bunda College of Agriculture outside Lilongwe. After being there for a few years he realized that no one at Bunda actually farms; after finishing their education they became technical advisors. So he dropped out, worked as an accountant to pay the bills, acquired some land in Dowa, and started an organic farm in 1982. They don't use any chemical pesticides or fertilizers, use a gravity-powered irrigation system, and have a crop rotation schedule to ensure the soil is not depleted. Unfortunately Glyvyns passed away a few years ago, but now his son Daniel is running the farm. Daniel gave us a tour and you can tell how proud he is of their land and their produce. Among other things, Daniel described how chamomile is planted around every plot because it is a natural bug repellant, how they alternate deep-rooted plants with crops that use the surface soil, and how all of the plant refuse is composted for use later as fertilizer. It is such a contrast to the scorched fields in the surrounding countryside! Not much is growing right now because it's the dry season, but because of their irrigation system they are able to grow some crops. We came home with an enormous bag of cucumbers, carrots, lemons, lettuce, and fresh chamomile!

One of the plots, bordered by banana trees.
The gravity-powered irrigation system.

They built a replica of Malawi into their irrigation system. The water flows in the north through the "Shire River", the wide part is "Lake Malawi", and the water leaves at the southern end through the "Shire River" again and empties into the "Zambezi River." The large tree trunk is "Lilongwe."

Read more about agriculture in Africa, including an article from 2006 about Chinkuntha.