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The Sustainable Leading Edge: A Discussion with Luwayo Biswick

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The Sustainable Leading Edge: A Discussion with Luwayo Biswick

Join us for a discussion on sustainability with Luwayo Biswick, co-founder of the Permaculture Paradise Institute.

In this episode of The Sustainable Leading Edge podcast, Kate Cacciatore, sits down with Luwayo Biswick, co-founder of the Permaculture Paradise Institute, to discuss his work  in the Regenerative Agriculture space,  food forests, sustainability, and more.

Luwayo talks about the influence that their initiative is having at a global level and the global-local principle they are following to both teach and learn within diverse cultural contexts. He shares his hope that in the future government policies to support regenerative agriculture will be implemented and that academic studies will be translated into more and more practical demonstrations of how farming practices can be transformed for the benefit of people, their economies and the planet.

Each episode of The Sustainable Leading Edge podcast, we invite different business, sustainability, civil society and public sector leaders to share their experience on the leading edge of the sustainability transition.

Kate Cacciatore

 

Hello and welcome to The Sustainable Leading Edge. I’m Kate Cacciatore. Before I introduce you to my guest today, here’s some context about the purpose of this podcast series and some of the questions and themes it sets out to explore as we face major global challenges, such as the effects of climate change, biodiversity loss and social inequalities. There is growing awareness today across all stakeholder groups that business with its global clout has to do more than incrementally improve its sustainability performance.

Kate Cacciatore

 

We need wholesale systems change in order to be able to shift to a net positive regenerative, inclusive economy and society. This will require unprecedented collaborative efforts of the private and public sectors of civil society and citizens to find new business and consumption models, innovative products and services, as well as groundbreaking policies, financing mechanisms and partnerships. This podcast invites business sustainability, civil society and public sector leaders to share their experience on the leading edge of the sustainability transition.

Kate Cacciatore

 

What motivates them to act and innovate in this space? What is their vision and how are they working towards it? And what kind of mindset shift do they think will be necessary to bring about the changes we want to see in the world today? For this fifth episode of the podcast, it’s my great pleasure to welcome Luwayo Biswick, co-founder of the Permaculture Paradise Institute, a social enterprise in Malawi that is leading one of the most exciting projects in the regenerative agriculture space, with the goal of creating 100,000 food forests by 2025.

Kate Cacciatore

 

A small, landlocked country in southeastern Africa with around 20 million inhabitants. Malawi economy is heavily based on agriculture, which is dominated by monoculture, primarily the cultivation of maize, using conventional farming practices and a heavy use of pesticides. In 2017, seeing the challenges faced by their country, the boy and his wife, Grace Davidson, decided to leave their jobs in the city and move to a rural village.

Kate Cacciatore

 

They set out to create a model of regenerative agriculture that would empower local farmers and households, teaching them how to create food, forests with multiple species of native trees, plants and crops that would provide a plentiful source of healthy natural foods all year round. At the same time as countering poverty and malnutrition, the food forests were quickly seen to replenish the land and natural resources, transforming the arid deserts resulting from maize monoculture into lush forests that support biodiversity and contribute to mitigating climate change.

Kate Cacciatore

So, Luwayo, welcome and thank you for being my guest on the podcast today. How you doing this evening?

Luwayo BiswickVery well. How are you, Kate?
Kate Cacciatore

 

Good. It’s lovely to see you. Thank you for joining me. After a long day out, planting trees and being with the farmers, which is what you’ve been doing today.

Luwayo BiswickYeah, we are on a mission. So. Yeah, right. For me.
Kate Cacciatore

 

Fantastic. Well, it’s wonderful to get a chance to hear directly from you about this wonderful story. And I was really struck about it when I when I heard it for the first time of you and Grace deciding to give up your jobs in the city and move to a village in the countryside and start doing something completely different.

Kate CacciatoreSo it would be just great to hear about it from you directly. How did that happen and what was it that sort of gave you this idea to set off on this adventure?
Luwayo Biswick

 

Oh yeah, it was it wasn’t easy at all. But after seeing the challenges that a lot of Malawians are facing in Malawi and how we had gone through the same challenges ourselves, we thought it wise that we move out of town into the outskirts and be with the people to address the challenges that people are facing because it it we’re not making sense.

Luwayo BiswickTeaching people from the city about transitioning into a world of abundance in the rural wilds was the we’re getting paid. We working and the like. And people are like you’re getting paid now and are telling us we can address these challenges. So I personally was born into a family of 12 and it was so challenging for my parents to provide for all the necessary resources, basic needs that we needed as children.
Luwayo Biswick

 

So as my wife, my wife grew up in an orphanage, you know. So yes, drove us kind of like a sense of loving what we were doing because we saw it was addressing the challenges that we used to face in the past and the challenges that people have been facing in Malawi. So we decided to create a job so that others could get a job because job deficit is a big problem in Malawi.

Luwayo Biswick

 

There are a lot of postgraduates in Malawi who are seeking for jobs and they can’t find any. So we wanted to create a gap and an opportunity for somebody out there to get an employment whilst going out into the outskirts to create employment for. Before that we would create a life, you know, self-sustaining life for ourselves and supplies that would go to other people.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So it wasn’t easy at all. But then we did not have enough capital to start a new life. And it was in the in the village where we’ve never been before in a different district outside this district, the city that we used to stay. So it wasn’t it wasn’t easy at all by then, but we chose to do it the hard way so that as we are teaching the farmers who are most marginalized by most by the government and other organizations, we wanted them to understand what we went through to be where we are as an example.

Luwayo Biswick

 

And a model to them that they can address the same challenges and also be able to grow their own food and their living and live self-sustaining lives.

Kate Cacciatore

 

That’s amazing. What a what a big step to have taken a very courageous one. And did did you and Grace already have a background in permaculture or did you have to learn everything from scratch?

Luwayo Biswick

 

No. But then we we had actually what drove me into permaculture was poverty. Because of poverty, I spent most of my time trying to seek for solutions for hunger and poverty. So was my wife. Of course, we got a job, but then we still wanted to do something, something that would satisfy our our needs. So yeah.

Kate Cacciatore

 

So that was when the idea came up and so. Right. So you so you went to live in this village. You lived there for a while to understand how everything worked. And before we get into the, the details of the food forests that you’re now creating, how did you actually get started? And I think starting from the beginning is the hardest thing because you haven’t got the momentum going yet.

Kate CacciatoreSo how did you start getting the momentum going in your project?
Luwayo Biswick

 

So after I bumped into permaculture, this was the time I was to staying with my parents. So there was a family in the city where I was staying and they were practicing permaculture. I saw what they were doing. I went back home and redesigned my parents yard into a forest. That was the first forest I designed as a learning as a learning classroom.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So it was a living classroom for me before this was before I went through any kind of training. And then I started following books and doing a little research on permaculture and stuff. That’s when I got an opportunity to look through the permaculture design certificate course, and then I go to school actually to continue with my studies with university.

Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah. So after after that I got a job and then I had this experience because my job was teaching about permaculture. So I was going about in Malawi in different parts of Malawi, teaching permaculture on different districts, villages and communities and colleges, schools and even across the crops. I was going in different countries teaching, which so I have this vast knowledge and I met my wife at the institute where I was teaching, so she was my students, my vein, my main other.

Luwayo Biswick

 

And then yeah, she also got friends, went to the same training and then she got certified in permaculture. So by the time we’re coming in to the outskirts and to the village to set up a permaculture institute, we had vast knowledge because we had already been teaching in different parts of Malawi and of course in different parts of the world.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So have these vast knowledge and I had been to Europe and other other other parts of the world, so I had less knowledge and experience and you know how people live and how they grow food and the like and the challenges that people are facing Africa and even in Europe. Because, you know, when you’re talking about climate change, it’s a global challenge.

Luwayo Biswick

 

You know, we’re not talking about a global challenge. So all these are global crises, talk of food insecurities, not just in Africa. So how do experience because I have been to these different countries. So by coming to this village to establish this democratic institute, we were based in the knowledge that we had and the anger that we had, the anger that a lot of people know how to do well, they choose to do otherwise, including the politicians.

Luwayo Biswick

 

You know, they know how to do well and all the solutions to address the problems that people are facing. So they know compost is the way to go and they go fertilizer. You know, they know if you give an animal to a person, the animals will be multiplying a bag of fertilizer won’t. So they notice things like that they choose to do otherwise.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So this is one of the reasons why my wife and I decided to relocate from the city and establish this permaculture. And so we had this vast knowledge already and the anger and the passion on the work that we were doing.

Kate Cacciatore

 

Yes, Yes. That’s very tangible. And it comes through in what you’ve managed to achieve so far, which I think we can start delving into that in a little bit more detail. And I guess it would be a good first step to talk about the food forests. So what would you say is the definition? How would you describe a food forest to people who’ve never heard about the concept?

Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah. So food forest, it’s to me simply means regionally garden which keeps on evolving with different plants, different strata, producing food year round. So it’s not just a normal garden where you see a single crop which is harvested at a single time of the year. But to me it’s it’s a garden, of course, diverse garden but it’s regenerative on that time and it keeps on it keeps on evolving.

Luwayo BiswickSo that’s what it means to me.
Kate Cacciatore

 

Okay. And so the if you think about the food forests that you’re currently creating with the farmers in in Malawi, and perhaps you could describe to us a little bit the kinds of trees and plants and crops and you know how it works in practice. If you are if a farmer is starting with some land which is fairly barren, what do you do and how does it how does the food first get started?

Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah. So people need to know this, that the food for us is always site specific, area specific and premise specific, but it’s regenerative and it’s not static and it keeps on evolving. So in this part of the world where we live in tropical region, that is kind of like different. And then if you go to a climate, the food forest will be different because you are kind of like adapting to the local situation and designing different stories to meet the needs of the people, but also designing around existing structures and climates and conditions and limitations and the like.

Luwayo Biswick

 

But in our case, our limitation is that most of the farmers do not have access to much land and meaning that on average farmers only have a hectare one hectare. So having having seen that, you know, only hectare and the family are like local for us or a 12 family a hectare would not be able to produce enough food to feed this large family.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So our approach is a little bit different, not just talking about it, but bottom line, some of the people that buying food for us are siding with their home state where people live, because in Africa, specifically in Malawi, these are places which are stripped bare. There’s nothing that goes around the house. So everything is stripped bare. So we are starting around that minimizing background by redesigning that landscape in Homestead to create what we call an integrated homestead forest.

Luwayo Biswick

 

Some trees are planted like passion foods. Passion fruits are planted to to create, to provide shade for the family. So instead of the families staying indoors all the time, they’ve got gazebos outside created by this passion forwards and, you know, a single line of produce up to 250 individual foods.

Kate CacciatoreWow.
Luwayo Biswick

 

So even a single passion fruit selling to a farmer, the farmer won’t be able to harvest 250 individual foods per year, per season within three months season. Then we plant papayas. Papayas do not take too much space. And Maureen got catches, papayas and avocados. And then the passion fruits, the farmers eat the leaves as well as the fruits. Then bananas, bananas are planted behind the shower.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So we’re talking of, you know, homestead. But, you know, trying to condense and maximize the use of every square meter, make it productive to provide for the needs of the farmer. So this becomes a food forest because we’ve lemongrass around the house to strengthen the foundation of the house, control erosion, but also keep mosquitoes and snakes. I mean, this lemongrass is used to make herbal tea.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So there are things like turmeric, ginger, taro, sweet potatoes, strawberries, blueberries. And I read up these edible flowers in the station, edible flowers which are planted around the house. So this creates a food source which are which which are produced as food in space and time. So we have the grown cavalier clamp and absolutely slab layer and tall trees producing food.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So that’s at Homestead food forest. Then we have woodlands and orchards where these farmers are able to and beehives to facilitate pollination and they get honey from that. And then the orchard, that’s where they get most of their foods. And then in the woodlands, that’s where they get most of their firewood and medicine, timber and then routine supplies. Then in Ranford Farm, where they know that farmers normally grow seasonal crops.

Luwayo Biswick

 

This is where we create unique fruit forests by introducing agroforestry. Now, for forests would call agroforestry food farms the same thing. Yeah, yeah, same thing. So but in our case, that’s what forests, that agroforestry system must be specific. So in this, Ranford, these rain trade systems, farmers plant maize, soybeans, coffees, pigeon peas, cassava, sweet potatoes together, agroforestry trees like what you see here.

Luwayo Biswick

 

And looking. And we have fish green as well as cover crops like corn. I love love. So these crops are planted together with seasonal crops to add biomass to the soil and protect the soil, provide maximum ground, cover the soil also fixes nutrients like nitrogen, you know. So in this case, farmers are able to produce food from within around their home seeds in the in the orchard as well as in the rain through farmers then in the wetlands, which in most of the cases is a blessing, is which are spared for grazing.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So in these grazing farmers we are also trying to help farmers. We designed these wetlands to grow rice, to get it into maize and vegetables and agroforestry trees so that bananas. So these crops which are grown there. So if you take a little bit of what is harvested from within the household and a little bit harvested from the orchards and that of the benefit and the wetland, these provide enough food to the farmer instead of depending on the single food which is of our use, you know, and over time it becomes, it becomes like the farm itself becomes a victim of food production and then all of these challenges.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So we’re like, if we integrate rather than segregate our systems, we will be able to produce food and whatever is harvested from these small pieces. If you put together a farm, I’ll still be able to having that filled by the end of the day.

Kate Cacciatore

 

Wonderful. That really helps to visualize the and I understand really why you call it the permaculture paradise. The word paradise springs to mind when you hear all these wonderful fruits and vegetables and legumes and the the farmers, their families in the communities can can benefit from is they’re generally enough of a surplus to be able to sell some of this produce.

Kate CacciatoreOr is it generally for the consumption of the farmer’s family.
Luwayo Biswick

 

We have seen so much surplus. I give an example. My son, I was just a single classroom for about four. For example, in our farm we’ve got 2000 plus inputs. If you multiply 2000 by 250, that’s a lot of foods. So there’s this surplus because when you’re talking about production in, in permaculture, you’re not just talking about the production of a single crop within a single season.

Luwayo Biswick

 

I’m talking of multiple use from multiple crops in multiple seasons. So there’s always surplus because we need plenty of fruits in the season. There are multiple foods that that comes in that season more than enough for a family. A single mango tree, for example, gives us 1500 kilograms of mangoes plus. But that’s plenty of mangoes. Yes, several of us make some apples, avocados, so there’s surplus.

Luwayo Biswick

 

And tucking those surplus, we are building a market for the farmers so that we can connect the farmers to the market. So this will be a farmers market. Next to the farmers market. We’ll have an organic list, one where people who do not have enough land, they’ll be coming to buy organic, produce organic meals and food from this restaurant, and farmers will be able to bring their focus to the market and sell.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So we are not just seeing that the surplus, but we are also trying to boost the market because we have we’ve seen surplus produced from the farmers so that we can be selling. Yeah. And then in terms of surplus, it’s not just surplus that we sell, we are donating like the tree seedlings, we are donating these tree seedlings. Farmers are interested, but they’re not registered farmers on what project and schools are interested and they’re not part of our project and organizations are interested, but they’re not project partners.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So what we’re doing, we are donating besides selling because any permaculture permaculture embraces a sense of ethics if care is number one. So take care of the living and non-living things and then people are central to the way we design because it promotes self-reliance. We’re trying to make sure that we are obtaining a yield from whatever we do, and then a sense of fair share, an ethic that connects or binds to ethics.

Luwayo BiswickSo that’s why we are sharing surplus of food as well as supplies of seedlings multiplied or propagated from our tree.
Kate Cacciatore

 

Yeah, that’s that’s great that you mentioned also the word organic because there are no pesticides used in this approach. Right? Everything is completely natural. Am I right?

Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah, exactly. So we are surrounded by both small, medium and large scale farmers who are so much obsessed with chemicals and fertilizer, and then to the point that the government can no longer manage to subsidize enough fertilizer, even the subsidized fertilizer is way beyond the reach of … in the rural area and the process is itself by the time a farmer is able to access the subsidized fertilizer, the maize is fully grown and they can no longer use that.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So there are all these challenges that the farmer facing. So looking looking at that, that’s why we’re going through organic regenerating, we’re promoting organic methods so that that becomes an exit exit point for the farmers, for the poor farmers in the rural areas because they have lots of crop and animal residues that can be composted and use that as organic food allies that can grow food only that most of the farmers.

Luwayo Biswick

 

You know. The other thing that we came to realize is that if we continue using the word compost, the farmers won’t get interested because there’s no fertilizer there. You know, for them they would love if we are calling this compost organic fertilizer, fertilizer, they are attractive. I like all of this alternative to the fertilizer that we have been buying.

Luwayo Biswick

 

There’s another fertilizer. Well, if you say compost, I have to use a little compost. So that piece of land was fertilize. I use a so there are these little issues that are promoted about it.

Kate Cacciatore

 

Yes. And you mentioned, I think, about the natural fertilizer because you’re also increasingly integrating animals into the regenerative food forests. Right. So they are what kinds of animals are you generally introducing? Is it small animals or are larger animals to naturally fertilize the ground.

Luwayo Biswick

 

Because of because of funding? Then what we do after trimming the farmers, we give them to like tubers, sugars and rice as a start up. And we also give them a variety of seeds as soon as because we have all of that. But then in terms of animals, we have to buy because we cannot manage to supply less.

Luwayo Biswick

 

Like right now we’re working with 3400 farmers in three districts, right? So we provide a pair of chickens and a pair of ducks, so rabbits, chickens and ducks. These small animals are enough to provide, but to produce enough manure for compost, making for it to be able to grow food from within their homes. That yeah, but then when it comes to a larger scale, like the Rainford farmland, this is where we are introducing agroforestry species that we see.

Luwayo Biswick

 

They are looking into these being and what form to help provide a vessel for a long as a blessing. But we’re still working towards finding partners to be able to supply large animals like cattle, sheep and goats, so that the farmers should be able to produce enough manure compost making. But apparently they are just using crop residues.

Luwayo BiswickYeah.
Kate Cacciatore

 

But so so yeah, I mean as time goes on and the animals breed and you get more funding and larger animals, one can imagine that you will be able to have a greater number of animals that will reproduce and be available for other farmers. I imagine.

Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah. And this is the reason why we are pushing for animals, because if you give the bag of fertilizer to a farmer, fertilizer will only be used once and next year the farmer will need to buy another bag of fertilizer. By then the price will be double or three times. So if you give, let’s say, pair of rabbits to the farmer after one year, the farmer should have maybe ten times what they called from the project.

Luwayo Biswick

 

You know, that’s the difference. So in this case, the farmer will be able to have extra manure as time goes by, and then they should be able to grow enough food at a larger scale. So that’s that’s the idea. And, you know, when you’re talking of permaculture, agricultural, regenerative farming, it’s it takes a little patience. You know, it’s a transitional process.

Luwayo Biswick

 

And, you know, when you’re transitioning from want wheels or getting things done, other things, you need patience because it takes a little time. It’s not an overnight job, but we’ve seen it within a single year of farmers being able to address some of the challenges that they’ve been facing, but also be able to grow organic food from within small gardens as they are growing, you know, as they are mobilizing more resources to be able to grow food at a larger scale.

Kate Cacciatore

 

It’s just wonderful to to hear how it works in practice. And I think it would be really helpful also to understand the model that you’re using to scale this up, because you have actually gone from zero to a lot of farmers. I think you mentioned 3400 farmers trained and obviously your goal is very ambitious. It’s to reach 100,000 food forests, so 100,000 farmers who have been trained by 2025.

Kate Cacciatore

 

So perhaps you could talk us through the formula for scaling this up, because I think you’re using a train, the trainers approach to incentivize and encourage the farmers to themselves, train others to reach an ever growing number of farmers in the region. Is that right?

Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah, it is. So we are using the lead farm approach for now. And then after we are able to reach 100,000 farmers, we will start using the model village approach because by then we will have local clusters of farmers working together and these will become models of other villages and communities. So for the lead farm approach, this helps us to reach out to a lot of farmers within a short period of time.

Luwayo Biswick

 

We train one farmer to train, mentor and formulate the farmer club of ten farmers. So if we train, for example, one farmer to us, we have literally train ten farmers.

Kate CacciatoreBrilliant.
Luwayo Biswick

 

So yeah, in this case, when we are talking about training 100,000 farmers, we are planning to train 50,000 farmers. So when you serve 30,000 farmers, this translates to 3000 big farmers and the rest follow the farmers. If each of the farmers are able to train non farmers and so on. If I’m a level team. So the goal is to train 100,000 farmers by 2025 we are able to train 50,000 farmers in a year, which translates to about 250 farmers in demand.

Kate CacciatoreIt’s amazing.
Luwayo Biswick

 

And so if you do that, yeah, if we do that we should be able. Yeah, the goal sounds so ambitious. Some people are like, How would you do that? So we like in 20, in 2021, 2022 season alone, we’ve managed to train 3400 farmers. So that’s a clear indication that we should be able to reach our target if we find enough partners close to the dimension, because we are not just talking about training 100,000 farmers in central Mali, but we are talking about training 100,000 farmers across Malawi so that these become our citylights and they become kind of like hubs in miniature and these hubs and start creating that once it lives and multiply.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So if we have good partners across Malawi and then farmers are caught allowing these farmers multiplying, and then by the end of maybe 2060, we should be able to have a permaculture mission. You know.

Kate CacciatoreI love that.
Luwayo Biswick

 

We don’t we don’t need to go around saying farmers because the farmers are training themselves and the training of the farmers. So that’s the idea. And we are focusing on building leaders who can build other leaders because we cannot manage on our own to train all these farmers. But if we train farmers and they can train others, that’s how we’re going to manage to reach our goals.

Luwayo Biswick

 

But then when all these farmers are well trained and then formulated these plans, they’ll have villages, permaculture villages, which I would call ecological villages. Now this is because they have designed the same way, they do the same things. They, you know, they are doing their farming the same way they they’ll become model villages. We can model really the kind of quality of a model village when only two individuals out of 100 are practicing human contact.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So that’s not a model village, the model farmers, you know. But then when the whole village becomes a permaculture village, that will be kind of model village to us because we have seen all these model villages where you only find two farmers practicing what what’s the advocating… advocated for. So like it’s not a model village, you only have model model individuals.

Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah. What the individuals multiply who have a village doing the same things like a village of like minded people, but with the government model relates to us. So the model village approach will follow the lead farm approach if we successful in our approach.

Kate Cacciatore

 

Yeah, I can. I can see how you’ll be. That would be a critical point for the scaling up process. And I wonder, what would you say is the secret ingredient here? Because I know there are many different ones. Some of them are technical, some of them are human. But is it have you managed to generate this momentum through the vision that you’ve been able to share?

Kate Cacciatore

 

And how easy has it been to encourage people to participate and to really get it? Like, does every farmer immediately say, Yes, sure, I’m going to help train nine others? Or is it is it hard sometimes to convince them? What is it that makes the difference and helps it to become more of a movement than just an, you know, an isolated activity?

Luwayo Biswick

 

Our story shocks everyone. So when we share our stories, they’re like, okay, so you’ve been through what we’re going through right now. You have seen what we we’re seeing right now. Oh, you’re so you went to bed on an empty stomach some point, but you have all these tools, you know, sort of like, okay, so if you managed to get out of such predicaments and you have this paradise where people can come and harvest and time of the year, we can also manage to do this, you know, that personal story.

Luwayo Biswick

 

It’s a testimony that everyone can do it. And then the other thing is we okay, we we aware before, but now we have we have a lot of food. We have a lot of things people like. Okay, so you are our role models. You know, we can also become like you are, you know, we can have all these things.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So those are kind of things that have been attracting a lot of people to start doing what we are doing, not just as farmers, but we’ve seen a lot of people trying to create jobs because they have seen that, you know, you can take your passion, personal and professional. It becomes your real life because as people we work on different talents, but sometimes because of education and whatever, we get diverted from our own passion, our own talents, and we focus on something different.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So because of that, a lot of people have seen that it is possible. And if they managed, we can also manage. And that I think, is that because we share the story and we are the ones teaching if we don’t bring somebody else from elsewhere. So I think that that kind of thing. Okay, we are learning Malawi and we are farming from Malawians.

Kate CacciatoreYeah.
Luwayo Biswick

 

You know, that kind of thing. So we have seen a lot of people coming on their own instead of us going chasing or who is interested. And then we’re like, okay we have not come back from trainings. Apparently you wait and you pause or we have a course. I mean, yeah. So that’s that’s the most surprising thing. And talking of the, the compost toilets for example, we also do the composting toilets for farmers who are interested because they do not have enough animals, but they are interested to be producing a lot of manure.

Luwayo Biswick

 

You saw the government, for example, and many other organizations I’ve tried and they have built lots of these composting toilets across Malawi but they are not used because this stuff must be tied to a belt by somebody who doesn’t have one. So like you have a composting toilet, you are advising me to get a composting toilet and they don’t use it.

Luwayo Biswick

 

I didn’t want to like these people are not interested because you are peasant. I’m not interested. The chairman is not interested in using it. So that’s why this farmers are also not interested. So when they come here they see we use compost toilets like, okay, we can also have compost toilets inside. So last year we managed to build 100 composting toilets to 100 farmers and this year we are also planning we’ve on some planning and we are also planning to build 100 composting toilets to 100 farmers who have 200 composting toilets to 200 farmers.

Luwayo Biswick

 

And this help us to create 200 sites. So those are the secrets behind our success because we we challenge people. If you don’t believe us, you will still going to go to bed on an empty stomach as we are harvesting food every day in the like.

Kate CacciatoreSomething that you can get your mind around, isn’t it. Yeah.
Luwayo Biswick

 

When they see all this passion fruit dropping to the ground, they’re like, you know, you have all the food dropping to the ground because we planted. You can also have this if you want it. So yeah, if we planted passion fruit would been harvesting, we’ll be harvesting passion fruit. So are kind of secret. So why are people so much interested?

Luwayo BiswickBecause they can see a living symbol.
Kate Cacciatore

 

Yeah, that’s great. And I think from what I’ve heard you say, I suspect that the experience of the community is part of this as well, Right? In a way. Because the fact that the the farmer trains other farmers and they become a club and that people are doing this together for their for themselves, in their community, would you say that that plays a key role in sort of developing the community?

Kate CacciatoreSpirit?
Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah, it does. That’s a mantra. And another secret when the when we are the farmers see their fellow farmers doing likewise, being able to grow food, you know, they’re like, okay, we also need training and we also like to join the project because we would like to be harvesting food like how our families are doing. So that so that’s also key.

Luwayo Biswick

 

And then when farmers are working together that promotes love, that promotes and togetherness, that promotes unity and that promotes, you know, interdependency on each other, you know, you know, because one of the very creative on making compost and somebody would be very good at planting things. So when they’re working together as a club group, they support each other when some sort someone can not, you know.

Luwayo BiswickSo these farmers act as helping hands the farmers. So that’s also the beauty of working together in the Clovers as farmers.
Kate Cacciatore

 

It’s really wonderful kind of. It’s a model not just for other farmers in Malawi, but for people everywhere in the world. I think you are looking to create new communities, new ways of working, new ways of being in an economy and a society that makes sense for everyone.

Luwayo BiswickYeah, you’re right. Yeah, exactly.
Kate Cacciatore

 

Who. And so if we talk about the I don’t really like this term in this context, but the business model, the way that this is being financed and today, how is it working A you may lead depending on funding to be able to do the bulk of what you do. Is there scope for it to become self-sustaining over time?

Kate CacciatoreHow do you see that?
Luwayo Biswick

 

So we haven’t been getting funding from people up until when we started breaking farmers because yeah, because we always wanted to be able to grow our own food and be able to feed our family and be able to. Yeah So when the interest came on how it starts out as programs and we support the farmers, a lot of implications also.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So implications in the transport fuel and you know mobility issues to reach out the farmer some farmers like 200 miles away or some farmers are 400 miles or sometimes a 20 miles away, sometimes a five miles away. You know, So for for me to be able to reach to this family’s like 500 kilometers from us, I can walk.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So these these are kind of things I’ve seen the issue to to do with funding. So that’s where we needed partners to come in and join us as farmer as the whole. I would say the training, because for me to train as a farmers, yeah, that’s possible. But then to train 100 farmers, I need to replenish that energy and I need to be compensated for the time because this would be the time I would be in my garden planting things.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So those are kind of things that I’ve brought in or attracted some partners to come in and start bringing in funding and the like. So you’ve seen what they’ve been planning. We and paused. You. You know what we did? We got funding. You know, it’s not like you’ll see the motor bikes. We did the training, you see the training and then look, just this single picture of a single day, but an object of the training, you know, so you can follow the training.

Luwayo Biswick

 

It’s a five day training with support for five days, you know, all these things. So yeah, in terms of being self-sustained, then the food and do not been a problem for us. We don’t have a problem. But then when it comes to reaching, reaching out to farmers, that’s when we need funding. But then there’ll be a time we’ll be independent because this is what we do.

Luwayo Biswick

 

After training farmers and they have formed the Farmer Club of ten, some of the farmers that are also identified to become community facilitators. So these community facilitators are provided with motorbikes and smartphones and they become not just community facilitators, they’re also extension officers as to us permaculture officers, non-government extension officers. So they are the ones who are there all the time and then they continue training other farmers.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So in terms of sustainability and multiplication of the farmers, over time, when the project phases out, we have these people who are community facilitators on behalf of the resources and they can they can continue multiplying. The farmers are training of training more farmers. So we believe at some point that we will from when we don’t look at that, to say, okay, this region is independent and they no longer need our our support.

Luwayo Biswick

 

But in terms of because when you’re talking about sustainability being self-sustaining, you need to look at all angles, not just financially, but you’re also looking at the system itself that you are implementing, you know, or the project that you’re implementing. So if you look at the plants, the crops themselves that we are promoting for the forests because like I said it to regenerate, it’s not a static system, it is an evolving system.

Luwayo Biswick

 

It keeps on evolving, you know, so because of what you plant, the passion fruit today, you come five years later, you still find passion fruit the mill even more. You plant a single lemongrass. Today, you come ten years later, you have plenty of lemongrass. So in terms of sustainability, we’re not just looking at the donors, we’re not just looking at funding.

Luwayo Biswick

 

We are also looking at the project itself being able to sustain itself and the farmers. And so so you can classify sustainability in a couple of thematic areas and then we can run that and see on the extension path what are strategies in place to make sure that the extension is self-sustained. And then on the production side, you know, are the farmers planting, let’s say, seasonal crops or …crops which continue to produce food?

Luwayo Biswick

 

And then you look at the clubs themselves as well, organized social structures in place and then policies and bylaws, you know, guiding and governing local boards and the like, you know, so that the farmers that can and continue to work on their own without support from us. So you’re looking at all these angles.

Kate CacciatoreSo it goes well beyond just the permaculture itself. It’s as you said before, it’s like a model of community and a way governing and determining how things work.
Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah, so it’s the food production you’re talking of permaculture beyond food production. So you talk of food production, talk of human settlements are community governance and the like. So, you know, permaculture looks at all these things, not just for production. So people are kind of beyond agriculture. So it’s more of a design sense and it is only designed to meet specific needs and it depends on what you’re designing.

Kate Cacciatore

 

Yeah, exactly. And I think what’s interesting also about the project and very inspiring is that it’s not just happening. You’re running it within Malawi, but the influence that you’re having is, is global. If I understand correctly, because on the one hand you’re part of the Agriculture Regeneration Communities, the ARC initiative, which is something that and it’s an activity that covers many different countries and lots of cross-fertilization of ideas going on there.

Kate Cacciatore

 

But you also have universities and research institutes coming to study what you’re doing to understand how is how are you making such a success of this and what lessons can be learned and applied in other places? Maybe you could tell us a little bit about this global reach and global influence that you are now managing to have?

Luwayo Biswick

 

Well, in permaculture, the most interesting thing is that there’s a principle which sees think globally, locally. So like whatever we do, we have a big vision. It’s like a global vision, but we are doing it at a local level for instance and attract global attention. So the thing is, we are not just thinking about growing and upskilling these techniques and whatever we’re doing in Malawi, but we would like to influence global wild, you know, So this is the reason why you see that the way we do our things and then we advocate for work.

Luwayo Biswick

 

It attracts a lot of people from all sorts of culture and the like. And then when they come here, they find little lessons applicable to their culture and relevant lessons applicable to the environment and climate and the like. You know, that’s the most important thing. And we are able to use local resources, local demonstration to impact the world.

Kate CacciatoreIt’s amazing. It’s just great to think we have things that we can share and that we have in common and we still have to adapt them. But the fundamentals are there wherever you go.
Luwayo Biswick

 

Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So this is the reason why I can go. Like when I go out to teach, I not just go out to teach. I also go out to learn because for example, if I’m teaching in a different culture, I need to understand the culture and understand, you know, how people leave the farm or whatever. So there’s a lot that I learn as there’s a lot that I teach.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So we live in this world, but we we’ve got so much to learn as we’ve got so much to teach. And there’s nobody was going to have to have anyone who knows everything was going to know everything, got everything he needs or she needs. We have something that we need from others. So we believe there’s nobody who is going to have it all and need anything from anyone, as there’s nobody who was born without nothing, nothing, you know, and everyone was born with something.

Luwayo BiswickWe can all share something when it does. Yeah. So that’s how we believe.
Kate Cacciatore

 

It’s a very powerful and inspiring philosophy to share. And I guess we’ve already had a sense of the vision that you have, which is a big one. Is there anything else that you would add, something that you’re hoping to bring about in the future and the anything that you would like to share with others out there who are wondering, how could I do this?

Kate CacciatoreI’m trying to do it. I would like to do it. What would you say to them?
Luwayo Biswick

 

Well, yeah, there are a lot of people outside with our own our own government in Malawi. We one thing that we would like to see is our policies supporting the generality of systems, our policies supporting agriculture. Well, we may have our policies, but we also need to implement it. So implementation becomes a problem. So I would love to see our own government pushing for regenerative systems because we have seen a huge number of Malawians suffering because on poor decisions and poor policies.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So these policies are affecting a lot of Malawians and the victims of our policies on multiple occasions. Yeah, those people, smallholder farmers in the rural areas blame those in custody of policies. Those are not affected by the policies. So that’s, that’s number one. And then I would also like to see, you know, those people who are promoting these regenerative systems or agriculture, permaculture or whatever.

Luwayo Biswick

 

Well, number one, to document fellows, number two, to practice, because there are a lot of studies, there are a lot of studies in Malawi used across the globe, but then there are few demonstrations of those studies. So I would love to see all the studies accompanied by practical examples of the studies. Right. Don’t need too much papers which will never address the challenges facing.

Luwayo Biswick

 

We had practical studies in the fields showing what’s written in those studies, and this is what it was. We wouldn’t have had a lot of people going to good on an empty stomach because they could easily be harvesting papayas. You can have all these figures know in the in the in the in books and studies that nobody would be perfect as nobody nobody is the reason why we go to lots of professors in Malawi with few farms and lots of graduates in Malawi graduating from these different agriculture.

Luwayo Biswick

 

It is very few farms because everyone is searching to become a politician or everyone is searching for a job. So love, I would love to see these practical examples of practical funds farms established by graduates, you know, farms established by professors. And before we talk of farmers, you know, farmers are doing their part. Unfortunately, they are just the victims of everything.

Luwayo Biswick

 

All these challenges that victims of climate change, the victims of hunger, the victims of inflation, the victims of all these things. If we join hands together, then I think we can. We can actually, because there are a lot of people who talk a lot about agriculture, regenerative agriculture and the like. They have no way to show they can show you but they have lots of studies to show you, but they have no qualms.

Luwayo Biswick

 

Well, they can share. So I would love to see that because these farmers, most of the farmers we worked with, they are … The labels are very low, you know. So these are farmers who are visual learners. They learn by seeing things what’s happening. So this is the reason why we’re pushing for more permaculture Institutes across Malawi so that the farmers out there, they can see what’s happening and then they can take those lessons and apply them in their lives for for the farmers, nothing special than being smart and working hard because this is a layer, the type of information that can find it elsewhere.

Luwayo Biswick

 

So it’s just a matter of encouraging the farmers to work hard and be patient because there are things that won’t show results today or tomorrow, but they’ll be sure results. And I would just encourage people that it is possible to take permaculture and agriculture personal and professional, as a full time job. And it is possible we can we can grow food using it.

Luwayo Biswick

 

We grow our own food here we’ve seen it and we do not need to worry much about the prices of it lays on the prices of inputs because we’ve seen that we can move away from that real farming into for regenerative farming. And I would love to shout out to give a shout out to agriculture asset regeneration communities for their support.

Luwayo Biswick

 

We have United Methodist Church of that action that also gives support because we are also working in partnership with them in one district. And Urgent Climate Action is a UK based organization. They supported Malawian youths to come and take a six month training course here on the on the farm. So they’re also playing a role. And I also like to give a shout out to all the universities, both in Diaspora and in Malawi.

Luwayo Biswick

 

They spend a lot of time, invest alot in sending the students Institute. There are a lot of other institutes that could be sending students but by identifying and acknowledging that what we’re doing is having a great impact in the academic world. I think for us it’s a plus. So all the local universities will bring the students here and then those in those cities.

Luwayo Biswick

 

And yes, I would like to give them a shout out as well. And yeah, and my wife as well, the time that, you know, because we achieved a lot, we have achieved a lot and there’s a lot that we’re going to achieve. So I would like to give them a shout out.

Kate Cacciatore

 

Yeah. I mean, I can’t thank you enough for joining me and joining us today because I think there are going to be a lot of people who, when they discover what you’re doing, will be it lifts your spirits and it shows that it is possible and it encourages it gives a clear pathway forward. So thank you so much for what you’re doing, and I’ll be watching and learning from how it goes from here and hoping that your vision becomes a reality in every way.

Luwayo Biswick

 

I would like to thank you so much because without you, our work kind the way it is right now, because people like you taking this information and sharing with the world in a way that we cannot manage on our own, so we can’t thank you enough. You cannot support our project with some money. By doing this podcast, you are making a very huge contribution to this project and yeah, we can’t thank you enough.

Luwayo BiswickThis is a great contribution.
Kate Cacciatore

 

Well, thank you so much. It’s been really a pleasure to learn about everything that you’re doing and hopefully we’ll get a chance to talk again and find out how it’s going in a while.

Luwayo Biswick

Yeah, thank you. I’m looking forward as well.

Kate CacciatoreAll right. Well, thank you to you and have a great evening with your family.
Luwayo BiswickThank you. Thank you.