Never Ending Food Permaculture
Malawi
NeverEndingFood is consisting of 3 homes, a classroom, small livestock, gardens, ponds, bee hives, forests, and fields in which, through Permaculture, they raise hundreds of species indigenous to the area: foods, fuel, fertility, fencing, fodder, medicines, and many more. Permaculture is all organic.
Lead Organization
NeverEndingFood is a family home and farm for Stacia, Kristof, and Khalidwe Nordin from which they do community outreach.
Country
Malawi.
Timeline
From 1997 to August 2003 for their first home.
From 2003 to present for their current home.
Funding
The project is self-funded from the Nordin’s salary as well as some donations.
It costs around 20,000 USD for the infrastructure (rammed earth and other buildings, seed bank, hand dug well, composting toilets, ponds, etc.) with around 10,000 USD annual running costs for staff and maintenance.
Mission
NeverEndingFood, is the Nordin’s home and community-based permaculture demonstration in Chitedze, Malawi where they use and showcases many low-input, high impact ecological technologies for organic agriculture, water, sanitation, food and seed multiplication, processing, storing and sharing, sustainable energy, and much more. They have reached thousands of visitors in surrounding villages and a wide variety of organizations locally and internationally, they support an internship programme for their community to certify interested people in Permaculture, and partner with universities to host student attachments and conduct online sessions. They are involved in several organizations related to these topics to spread solutions that address root causes of problems.
Context
Main beneficiaries
Their community. Their immediate neighbors and land are their focus.
The project reaches thousands of visitors from surrounding villages but also from local and international organizations, often by word of mouth and social media. They also host interns from their community (from 3 months to 2 year internship) and students from partner universities. Often the interns are youthful (under 35) but they’ve had a few older teachers also intern with them during their summer holiday.
Strategy
Objectives
NeverEndingFood follows Permaculture’s three Ethics:
- Care for the Earth – Air, Water, Soil, Flora, Fungi, Fauna, People
- Care for people – who are part of the Earth and need air, water, nutrition, medicines, shelter, love, respect etc.
- Fair share of resources – all the above in equitable systems tailored and flexible to needs.
Their approach also looks at the production and consumption of healthy food for sustainable nutrition.
Activities
The Nordins arrived in their current farm site in 2003 in a land with impoverished soil. There was only maize in the field and a tomato garden.
During the first month, they did a lot of digging, and there was no organic matter in the soil.
During the second month, they started the garden with soil cover, and focused on native species.
At the 4th month, they started to harvest the crops which grew and continued to choose species for the function they can play in the ecosystem.
During the first year, they created a horseshoes pit to get organic matter in the soil.
During the second year 2, the garden continued to grow, they expanded the land with mostly native perennial crops and the use of by-products for soil food.
After 12 years, they reached one hectare that they share with 2 other families. They have 4 fishponds, horseshoes pit covered, but also chickens, rabbits, and beehives.
In 2021, they hired a manager to start doing on-farm classes and training, with TV, interns and refugee camps coming. They are not 100% sufficient –as they do not produce dairy products for instance- but they are almost there.
They also created shelves for the community seed bank to keep seed savings such as traditional/indigenous crops or crops adapted to Malawi.
They produce staples (yams), bananas, snort apples, avocados, legumes, and insects.
Effects and impacts
Throughout the years the farm hosted several interns, who had the opportunity to change and grow thanks to the experience; many of them now live and teach Permaculture. NeverEndingFood has had a steady stream of visitors and invitations to speak, advise, provide input, write, etc. because of their reputation. The farm’s land has healed and is now thriving. Thanks to many exchanges there is also some spread in our community, though the community is largely a rental community so ever-changing with new people. Permaculture is in line with all the agroecology principles.
Lessons learned
- Working together with the community – geographically or within the sector you are part of and trying to improve.
- Continually rethinking, reflecting, and innovating solutions.
In general, they realized Permaculture can solve many of the problems that affect Malawi and the rest of the world. Restoration of indigenous species and elimination of fossil fuel plastics are not getting the attention they deserve in Permaculture and other forms of Agroecology and we hope that more of you reading this consider including it in your life’s work.