We are sharing with you a series of travel logs written by ARI staff member Steven, who visited Africa in August.

Yesterday, they arrived in Kitwe and had a meeting with the United Church of Zambia University.
Today, they will spend a day with the staff of the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation (MEF), which is located on the same grounds.

Can potatoes grow from a piece of potato skin…?
What does 1,000 hectares of farmland look like…?
Giving land to a group of squatters and teaching them how to survive for FREE…?
The farmland of MEF was full of surprises!!
Let’s get started on our trip to Africa!

【An African journey to visit ARI graduates, Day9】

The Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation (MEF)
Though it was the students’ holiday time, a good number of them were in the chapel for praise worship this morning.
Keep in mind there are two educational institutions here – UCZ University and MEF. Yesterday we were with the university and today we are with MEF.
A few students were due to have their last exams today. As per expectation the service was all about singing and what voices! A guest choir even joined. Rev. Prof. Dr. Hoyce, gave the message and introduced us. As admissions coordinator, the person who decides who can go to ARI and who can’t, she dubbed Kai “the Big Potato.”
On the way to our official meeting, complete with a printed agenda, Hans noted that MEF had deteriorated a great deal in recent years, but the director, Madame Hoyce, is working hard to rebuild it. Hans, by the way, is a volunteer from Bread for the World in Germany. He is eight months into a nearly three-year agreement. He is an agricultural engineer in organic farming and has many years of experience as a development worker in Ecuador.

The meeting was attended by Madame Hoyce, who became the Executive Director in 2020, Hans, the Chaplain, and the maintenance officer(naturally), and of course Kai and Steven.
The first order of business was to sign the big hard cover guest book. Madame Hoyce then spoke of some of their educational programs, highlighting their Masters in Peace and Conflict Resolution. They also house one of the largest libraries in Zambia! Apparently, their agricultural programs had completely deteriorated but were restarted in 2021 and now agricultural is a program department. Fifty-seven students are studying agroecology.

MEF is working to increasing their partnerships, including with the Japanese government. A proposal was put into the Japanese embassy to install solar panels on the farm. Electricity is a constant challenge, due to the load shedding caused by the drought, which is why they want the solar panels. Additionally, they are expecting a JOCV volunteer next year. (JOCV means Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer, like the Peace Corps volunteers in the US.)
Our visit was part of this effort to establish, or re-establish, partnerships. I contacted MEF several months before our trip to ask about four graduates they had sent to ARI back in the ‘80s and ‘90s. It turns out that two of them had passed away, one could not be located, and the last one is retired and living in Nakonde. I talked to her by WhatsApp! MEF was quick to respond to my inquires, using it as an opportunity to renew our relationship. They requested a Zoom meeting right away and warmly invited us to visit them during our travels in Zambia. The Zoom meeting resulted in the introduction of two applicants whom they told us about during the meeting, and we later spoke with in person.

The Mindolo training farm
Regarding agriculture, MEF owns an astounding 1,000 hectares of farmland, which is mostly undeveloped. They originally had 2,800 hectares, provided as a government grant, but sold roughly 2/3 of it. The farm, called the “Mindolo Training Farm,” is a short drive from the campus and Jakob (farm manager), and Evelyn (assistant farm manager), along with other MEF staff, showed us around.

At this moment their livestock consists of 5 cows, 47 goats, 56 pigs, and about 100 village chickens. Their cattle are a mix of Frisian and the local Ngoni breed. The biggest cow is a fellow they call Mountain! Manure is collected as an important source of compost, and compost making is part of their training.
Their water source is an artesian well, which is not sufficient for their needs, so they want to drill a borehole. In their small gardens, they are practicing intercropping, such as eggplant and amaranth. Amaranth is highly nutritious and can be mixed with “mielie meal.” Mielie meal is flour, usually made from maize, and is a significant part of the diet of Southern Africa. They are also planting maize with legumes (green beans). The maize is a native variety with big red grains, thought to be more drought resistant. Jakob was experimenting with replanting carrots that were pulled out during thinning and was proud to report that they grew just fine!

In one section they had several “bag garden” potatoes. If you plant a piece of thick skin with an eye on it, you can get a potato. Growing them in bags conserves water and requires less space. Many of Jakob’s innovations, which he was very excited about, came from a training visit to a farm called the Don Trust farm in Ndola, which has a 20-year history of pioneering organic farming techniques.

Indigenous trees for indigenous people
Jakob would like to introduce the concept of “Family Plots,” that he heard they are doing in Malawi. Family plots are small pieces of land, 60×39 meters, on which families can grow maize for home consumption. The idea is to plant 52 rows of maize, and each row is long enough to provide one week of food for a family of 5. If you have 52 rows, the family can eat throughout the year. Since the plots are small, they can be close to the house and managed easily by the family, even if hand watering is required. This system is in contrast to the usual practice of growing large fields of maize for the purpose of selling, on big land that is usually far from the house, and fully dependent on rainfall. According to Judy, Zambians are far too dependent on corn and “it is killing us.” “We need to diversify into yams, millet, sorghum, and others.”

In 2020 MEF started a tree nursery with the goal of planting 1,100 trees a year. Right away they ran into problems with the locals burning the land where they had transplanted seedlings. Burning is a common practice for clearing land for farming. However, land that is not farmed is often burned as well. They believe that the smoke from the fires creates clouds that will bring the rain. They desperately want the rains to come as they did ten years ago. What they don’t understand is that the more the forest is destroyed the less rain comes. So MEF staff are educating the people about the importance of the forest, of planting trees, and of not burning.

Jakob is doing his best to grow indigenous trees, such as the Masuku tree and the Sungole tree, but it isn’t easy to germinate them. He also plants fruit trees and Acacia (a legume for nitrogen fixation). Seedlings are transplanted at the start of the rainy season, which is supposed to be November, but these days it is hard to predict.

A new village is made
When MEF acquired this land, there was a group of squatters living on one section of the property. Rather than attempting to kick them off, MEF gave each family 3 hectares. They have since formed themselves into a small community called Chilogwe, and MEF is approaching them to start small development projects and trainings. Even though they have land now, they don’t get much yield. They only plant when the government gives them fertilizer, which is not regularly, and not enough, and they get only one or two meals a day. So, MEF’s first activities were to help them develop the soil. Rather than burning the fields, as mentioned above, MEF is teaching them how to compost the leaves and brush. They are also trying to set up “alley farms” where 3-meter strips of native tree growth act as wind breaks, shade, and to retain water. In between these strips are 8-meter-wide lengths of farmland. The community was too far from our present location for us to go and visit, but we did run across an area where MEF is planning to build some houses and a 3-hectare community farm. Two people were at work digging a well, with one guy named Phiri at the bottom of a deep and narrow hole, filling a bucket with mud and a guy at the top pulling it up and emptying it. The mud can be used to make bricks for new houses. There were already two churches in this place, making me wonder how far away the village really was. In the future, they plan to build a school and a clinic. Health and education are always the first priority of a community seeking to better itself!

Judy (ARI applicant Judy) repeated what was said earlier about the Chilogwe community people eating only one or two meals a day and their being dependent on chemical fertilizers handed out (erratically) by the government. This information was gathered from her visits and conversations with community members.
MEF’s target is that the villagers can get three meals a day. They plan to start a “pass on the gift” goat project and also provide them with a chicken. They can choose to either eat the eggs the chicken lays or give them to MEF to incubate for them. In this particular area, they no longer burn the land. They are finding that they do not need to remove all the trees to cultivate land, which I assume is a reference to the alley farming mentioned above. They are also being taught to diversify their crops, from only maize and cassava, to include sorghum, millet, and soybeans. When one family sees a new farming practice being successful, the neighbors will copy it.
The community project we were viewing is getting some support from a church in Germany. The German church provides materials such as concrete, and the community provides the labor and local materials, like mud for bricks.

Written by Steven Cutting (Graduate Outreach Coordinator)
Travelling with Kai Shinoda (Admissions and Recruitment Coordinator)


Click here to read the series of articles

Vol.0 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Prologue】

Vol.1 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 1-2】 

Vol.2 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 3】

Vol.3 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 4】

Vol.4 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 5】

Vol.5 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 6】

Vol.6 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 7】

Vol.7 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 8】

Vol.8 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 9】<== Now, you’re here

Vol.9 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 10】To Be Continued …