The road to Dowa could be any road in rural Malawi. Subsistence farmers scratch out a living from desiccated, exhausted soil and pray for the rains to arrive soon. The blackened stubs of trees are mournful witnesses that this area was verdant indigenous woodland not so long ago. Now their function as recyclers of moisture is lost and the water that evaporates simply disappears. Rainfall has diminished and the rivers have shrunk to muddy trickles.
The conventional ways of farming no longer feed the family and villages have no resilience when the rains don’t come.
A bridge across a parched river bed leads to the Tikondwe Freedom Gardens, where a sudden bend in the road reveals a tall stand of shade and cool greenness. Plots of sugar cane and maize are interspersed with beds of strawberries, and bananas grow alongside artichokes in fields bounded by fennel, mint, camomile and basil.
This revolutionary organic farm has been developed without a single kwacha of donor or government funding, is based entirely on traditional technologies and uses no external “inputs” such as tractors, pumps or fertilisers. And, it has a turnover of almost three million kwacha a year, which is incredibly high by Malawian standards.
When Dr Glyvyns Chinkuntha and his wife Christine arrived here 24 years ago they had 100m2 of degraded marginal land, without a single tree left standing. Today there are 20ha of food crops, shaded by scores of indigenous trees and linked by a network of irrigation ponds full of tiny fish, skimmed by dragonflies.
The family and the surrounding community, who rely on the farm in times of drought, do all the labour manually. “People come here and work in return for food, and we have never turned away a work seeker,” says Chinkuntha proudly.
A former economist, Chinkuntha (62) decided to turn to food farming because “you cannot eat accountancy”. He displays an almost religious fervour when he talks about farming and the need for a new generation of highly educated farmers. “Very few people in Africa want to go to school and come back to be farmers. In fact, my father used farming as a threat. He said ‘if you don’t go to school you’ll end up as a farm labourer’,” he grins “and look at me now.”
Chinkuntha is adamant that Africa requires highly educated farmers if we are to adapt to climate change. “The people around here think you are mad if you tell them not to cut down the trees or slash and burn the vegetation. They need to be educated about the symbiotic relationships between animals and plants.”
He is also dubious about agricultural colleges, which he says should produce trained farmers, not managers. He has no doubt that his nation could be prosperous if its natural resources were properly harnessed. “In this region we cannot talk about water management in isolation. It must have a bearing on management of all other natural resources, such as soil.”
This is a man who loves the soil deeply and nurtures it as carefully as any of his crops, pointing out that it is also a living organism. “Commercial fertilisers kill the natural microbes in the soil, removing its ability to retain moisture, so in dry times soil treated with fertiliser actually leaches moisture out of plants.”
Not one leaf is wasted on this farm, which uses natural compost and mulch made from fallen leaves. Microclimates are created to grow fruit crops not found anywhere else in the district, by planting them in well-watered compost trenches.
“There are no external inputs here — this is closed ecology, which depends on the resources generated within.”
Rainwater harvesting pits are used to collect run-off and prevent the loss of soil nutrients to what he refers to as the “evil” of erosion. Vetiver grass is used to reinforce embankments, while lemon sorrel, marigolds and sage repel pests.
Water is channelled to all corners of the farm by simple aqueducts dug into the soil — based on those used by the ancient Egyptians — which use momentum to lift water. “I’m simply applying the most elementary principles of physical science, which I learned in primary school,” Chinkuntha scoffs at baffled irrigation experts.
“Farming is engineering, geometry and accounting … all those disciplines in one occupation.” Â He has no plans to expand, but aims to intensify operations and get the land to produce more using the same resources. Â Chinkuntha is blunt about the need for African self-reliance, to escape from the culture of aid and international finance. “We need proper strategies for growth instead of blowing our own trumpets over every small success and then not being able to follow up.”
He also believes the notion of highly indebted poor countries is “a mockery” that shouldn’t be tolerated. “If we have borrowed money, why should we remain poor instead of just indebted? What has that money been spent on? This shows we have an inability to manage resources. The power to manage is translocated to people who don’t want to touch the soil.”
And, he says, the aid industry often doesn’t benefit those who need it most: “When something comes for the poor it ends up in the hands of the rich and by the time it gets to the grassroots there is nothing left but a semblance to show off to the donors. Aid has worked — but to alleviate the poverty of the rich, not the poor!”