Alton Climate Action Network
Walking beside Gumbi young farmers adapting to climate change
Gumbi is a small village in central Malawi which is demonstrating how, with a little direct help, life can be transformed for young people and their communities and everyone can be given a lot of hope – in Malawi and in England!
ACAN is deeply committed to climate justice. Malawi is a poor country highly vulnerable to climate change because most people farm the staple crop, maize, and are dependent on very expensive artificial fertilisers and increasingly unpredictable rain.
In 2020, ACAN formed a very successful fundraising partnership with the Gumbi Education Fund (GEF) http://www.gumbieducationfund.org.uk/ to support the training of young people in permaculture, learning how to produce their food without chemical fertilisers by regenerating the land and growing a much wider range of crops. The GEF and ACAN have now funded the training of 15 young farmers at the Permaculture Paradise Institute run by Luwayo Biswick.
In 2021 the GEF and ACAN funded the purchase of 3 acres of land for the young farmers to set up a demonstration farm to teach others in the local villages.
The young farmers are now growing – without chemical fertiliser – dozens of different fruit and veg, with large harvests of sweet potatoes and cassava, feeding themselves and 50 other families, particularly older people and those who are not able to cultivate land for various reasons.
The Gumbi young farmers grow these local beans, known as kankhoma, organically. They are encouraging local farmers to grow their own Malawian heritage plants.
They have built a store room (with solar power) to keep their tools and harvests. They have started a seedbank for future use on the farm, and are distributing seed to local people who cannot afford to buy it.
Photo: The storeroom was built by the young farmers with hand-made bricks
RECENT ACTIVITIES
Planting trees
The young farmers have been busy planting trees to create a food forest on their farm. They have planted seedings of fruit trees such as mangoes, papaws, oranges, lemons, guavas, and passion fruits. They have planted about 600 trees on the farm and will share another 600 trees with the local communities so that they can have trees of different types around their homes.
The photo shows trees reading for planting
Keeping animals
The farm now has goats, pigs, rabbits and chickens, which is a major step forward. From April, they will be using manure from the animals for crop fertiliser.
The young farmers have worked hard to construct secure accommodation for all the animals. The GEF and ACAN are funding additional solar power for animal security.
By June 2023, they plan to introduce a pass-on system to other local farmers. As the animals breed, they will share the young animals with other local farmers, who can also breed them and in their turn share to another farmer, thereby encouraging other farmers in the community to adopt permaculture.
They have also built their own compost toilet within the garden to provide manure during the dry season.
Building a classroom
Later in 2023, the young farmers are planning to build on the farm a classroom made from local materials so that they can share their learning with others in the local villages and encourage the adoption of permaculture.
FIND OUT MORE – TWO VIDEOS
Recording of our international Zoom meeting (December 2022) with the Permaculture Paradise Institute, the young farmers, and John Vidal from the Gumbi Education Fund https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWQeaTX4d6o&t=668s
Project update and fundraising video (November 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL0717JpgRE&t=198s