59 min
A Discussion with Luwayo Biswick The Sustainable Leading Edge Presented by FigBytes
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- Technology
In this fifth episode of The Sustainable Leading Edge podcast, Kate Cacciatore, talks with 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.
A small, land-locked country in South-Eastern Africa, Malawi is one of the world’s least-developed countries. The economy is heavily based on agriculture, primarily the cultivation of maize using conventional farming practices and a heavy use of pesticides. The country is afflicted by severe poverty, malnutrition and unemployment, and it faces challenges in the area of environmental protection, education and healthcare.
In 2017, having experienced these challenges first-hand, Luwayo and his wife, Grace Davidson, decided to leave their jobs in the city and move to a rural village. 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.
During the discussion, Luwayo tells the story of how poverty and hunger drove him and Grace to seek a solution that would satisfy their basic needs and learn to do themselves what they were seeking to teach others. He describes how the integrated homestead food forests are designed, putting the needs of human beings and their communities at the centre of the approach and respecting strong ethical principles that ultimately lead to self-sufficient model villages and regions with robust local governance – a key element of their vision for Malawi to become a ‘Permaculture Nation’ by 2060.
Luwayo also shares some of the secrets of their success in scaling up the food forests, including the power of personal story as a living testimony that everyone can do this and that it is possible to take your passion and make it your way of life. He describes the key factor of community spirit and how the pooling of resources and skills as well as mutual support and togetherness make all the difference.
Finally, 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.
To learn more about the Permaculture Paradise Institute click here: https://permacultureinstitutemw.com/
To see videos of the Institute’s activites, click here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdRlzZuk37pdMxR3Wk1mVfw
In this fifth episode of The Sustainable Leading Edge podcast, Kate Cacciatore, talks with 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.
A small, land-locked country in South-Eastern Africa, Malawi is one of the world’s least-developed countries. The economy is heavily based on agriculture, primarily the cultivation of maize using conventional farming practices and a heavy use of pesticides. The country is afflicted by severe poverty, malnutrition and unemployment, and it faces challenges in the area of environmental protection, education and healthcare.
In 2017, having experienced these challenges first-hand, Luwayo and his wife, Grace Davidson, decided to leave their jobs in the city and move to a rural village. 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.
During the discussion, Luwayo tells the story of how poverty and hunger drove him and Grace to seek a solution that would satisfy their basic needs and learn to do themselves what they were seeking to teach others. He describes how the integrated homestead food forests are designed, putting the needs of human beings and their communities at the centre of the approach and respecting strong ethical principles that ultimately lead to self-sufficient model villages and regions with robust local governance – a key element of their vision for Malawi to become a ‘Permaculture Nation’ by 2060.
Luwayo also shares some of the secrets of their success in scaling up the food forests, including the power of personal story as a living testimony that everyone can do this and that it is possible to take your passion and make it your way of life. He describes the key factor of community spirit and how the pooling of resources and skills as well as mutual support and togetherness make all the difference.
Finally, 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.
To learn more about the Permaculture Paradise Institute click here: https://permacultureinstitutemw.com/
To see videos of the Institute’s activites, click here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdRlzZuk37pdMxR3Wk1mVfw
59 min