Just add water
Ebbes Farm
"Ebbes Farm", pronounced ebb-ezz, is named after Rev Chipeta's Dutch friend who purchased 60 acres of land to help feed Home of Hope Children's Village. In this shot taken this morning, it's the area between the tracks near the top, and the line of trees near the bottom, and lies about 4km away as the crow flies. It's dry. Really, really dry. Pick up a handful of powdery soil and drop it, and the hot breeze snatches it away before much hits the ground. That's just how it is in the dry season. Bring in the rains of November/December, and this same land will be creaking with a head-high maize crop.
Back into the two cars we've come in (they're dead centre in the picture!). Rev Chipeta wants to show us something, less than 1km away.
Just add water
Irrigation. Even in the dry season, water at Home of Hope itself splashes to the surface from springs between the hills, and wells up into the top fish pond. Down here on the plain below, you have to hunt for it. Dig, and you'll find it. Spread it, and the plants don't really care what time of year it is. You've got a crop!
Spot the blue elevated water tank
From above, the difference is clear. So why not water more land? Well (no pun intended), how hard are you prepared to try? In the scene above, water is being lifted from a borehole. That takes energy, and boreholes worked too hard run dry if the aquifer isn't replenished fast enough. But there are places where it's not so hard. No need to drive to the next location - it's a walk of only a few hundred metres.
A "dambo" area, with dams
Below the surface of the plain (actually a plateau) is a complex geology in which water drains in a web of naturally "soggy" channels and wider areas. Dig just down a couple of metres in such a "dambo" area, and you've got a pool, or "dam". (In the UK we might call it a pond, or pool.) The dry grey square in the shot above is a fourth dam being dug out. At the time of writing, Google maps still only shows three, here.
Plot after plot of beans, tomatoes, onions, all year around. If anything, it's harder to grow during the wet season, when heaped-up beds of soil with dramatic deep ditches between them have to be used to avoid waterlogging.
So far so factual. What about just how stunningly beautiful it is out here.
If you get the chance to visit Home of Hope, we highly recommend you accept any offer to visit the farm land. Get out under that big African sky. Take sun-block! I did not this morning, I'm a bit red-faced to say. Did take my hat.
We'd had an early start, and by 10.15am were back to meet a very special visitor: Ken Mkangala of HIMACUL (Highland Macadamia Co-operative Union Limited). Ken and his Finance Officer, Mwai, had driven from Lilongwe especially to meet us and to visit Home of Hope's Macadamia nursery. We sat under the shade of the large tree in front of the Guest House to discuss several ways in which Macadamia can produce income streams.
"This place can really benefit from Macadamia - from the saplings, from CDMCs*, and from the fruiting trees themselves." Ken is upbeat, deeply knowledgeable, and passionate about passing on his know-how to the team here.
*CDMC: Carbon Damage Mitigation Certificate
We all walk a little way up the hill behind the Vocational Training Centre, past the gleaming fishponds, until we reach the nursery beds. Ken, with Alex Chillundu and Thompson Chipeta and several workers are straight into discussion about the quality of the seedlings, the number and size of the seedbeds, etc. They speak in rapid Chichewa. (Even if they had been speaking in glacially slow Chichewa, I'm sorry to say it would have made no difference.) We ask Ken for a quick summary in English.
"I see many good things here. Many good things." He likes the number of beds available, and most are of the right size. "There are many seedlings, but most are overgrown. We pot these plants when there are just two hardened leaves. See, this one has four." He goes on to explain how the root system must be small enough not to have to bend it when potted, even if it means trimming. He is somehow unwaveringly positive and confidence-inspiring, even in his criticism. We all think Ken is a cool dude!
High praise from Ken for this fruiting tree nearby. He likes how the lower trunk is free of small branches. Of another, very bushy-based tree, he asks, "So, when a nut falls from this tree, how are you going to find it?"
Too many other Macadamia management gems to mention. Ken will visit the nursery here again before the rains, and even before that we hope that Thompson with Alex Chillundu will spend at least a three-day spell with him at his own Nursery. It will help immensely in achieving the target Ken has suggested, to almost triple the current rate of sapling production in 2025.
After lunch we catch up on a postponed visit to the Store Rooms in Rev Chipeta's courtyard. A lean yellow dog lies in the sun, almost gets up, then decides we're not a threat. He's no pet. There's a great deal of food stored here, and he has an important job to do.
A grass fire licked at a number of banana trees two days ago, at the lower edge of the Gardens below the hills. We passed a large pile of singed but salvageable banana bunches just outside one of the main stores, before going inside.
Mrs Chipeta with Gillian, and lots of maize!
Rev Chipeta counts off the months he expects the 500 x 50kg bags of maize to last.
Tomatoes from the Gardens. I don't eat tomatoes. Pity!
Home of Hope Children's Village is a hungry operation, consuming over 5 metric tons of maize per month. A great deal of effort goes into ensuring that the supply doesn't dry up. "Feeding is our first responsibility."
There's quantity, and there's quality. A very exciting development here at Home of Hope is the agreement by a charity "Mary's Meals" to provide daily enriched porridge to Primary aged children. Home of Hope themselves add protein in the form of ground soya beans to the children's afternoon porridge. And besides the prospect of regular income from Macadamia by selling seedlings, and carbon offsetting, in future the children of Home of Hope will benefit from the fruits of their very own Macadamia Farm. It was this we set off to see after lunch.
Since we'd be going there in the Farm Lorry, we asked Lucy if it would be OK for "a few" children to come along for the ride, under Thompson's supervision. Perhaps each of the few invited a few!
Even closer than Ebbes farm, and just next door to the plantation we were going to see, is a Fish Farm belonging to expert pisciculturist (had to get that in there: fancy for "fish famer") Mr Kumwenda. See earlier post. From the air its many grades of green water hide the Malawi Tilapia from herons. We've seen several around. As he told us yesterday, some ponds are looking rather dry.
We leave the blue truck at the entrance to the Fish Farm and cross the track, to find a strip of land dotted with small staked and mulched saplings: the Macadamia Farm.
The day has growing golden. I always think that children are the tree-rings of life, so that when the thought comes, "Where did that time go!?" one just looks at a young person, whosever, and, "Ah! There it went." Within a few years, these trees will be taller than any of the children who braved the bumps to get here, and this place will be a shady glade churning out world-class protein year 'round. There are dreams (let's see) that each child at Home of Hope will plant their own clutch of nut trees over time, as a life asset.
Children, carrying children, walk through the plantation
Just add water. Just add love. Things grow.
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Malawi, like many places on the planet, is experiencing changes in weather patterns and increased frequency of extreme weather events. The seasons here are becoming exaggerated on the one-hand (40 degrees Celcius and more in the summer; rains so heavy they wash away roads and bridges), and unpredictable on the other (rains that start early, or late, then stop, then pause, then...). The Malawi government predicts food shortages that will bring hunger to millions here in 2025, and has exhorted the country to cultivate irrigated crops to increase supply.
If you'd like to help Home of Hope make the most of it's access to land through irrigated agriculture, please do get in touch at info@malawiorphanfund.uk
Alex, Gillian, Jo, Phil, Ruth
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