SOILS, FOOD & HEALTHY COMMUNITIESAn IPEN Case Study
Lush Spring Prize 2017: Young Project
Project Summary:Soils, Food, and Healthy
Communities (SFHC) inMalawi works to support
smallholder farmers tobuild healthy, equitable, andresilient communities using
farmer-led participatory
research, ecologicalapproaches to farming, local
indigenous knowledge anddemocratic processes.
Farmers working with SFHC
experiment with agroecologicalapproaches including legume
diversification, agroforestry,and animal manure that haveresulted in improved childnutrition, food security andsoil management. Farmers
also engage in participatory
educational activities related
to nutrition, climate change,
gender, and social equity.
SFHC’s work is dedicated toaddressing economic, health andsocial inequalities at household,community and national levels.

David Banda and Esther Maona are very proud of the sweet potatoes
grown using agroecology approaches, with no chemical fertilizer used;
they have never grown such a big potato before.

SFHC’s Permaculture & Agroecology Education
Lessons• A broad agroecological approach is used, including agroforestry, mulching andusing animal manure, building on the initial legume diversification focus as away to improve food security, soil fertility and child nutrition.
• Farmer-to-farmer training linked with participatory research is most effective,
enabling farmers to do their own experiments and teach other farmers about
their findings.
• In line with food sovereignty concepts, SFHC take account of the social andcultural situation locally, adjusting their educational approaches and strategies
accordingly.
• Different levels of research can be integrated, to provide the most valuable
forms of evidence for different audiences, with each level creating feedback
which benefits different types of learning.

The Project’s story
The Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC) project in Ekwendeni, northern
Malawi, began in 2000 with thirty farmers, and is now working with over 4000
farmers as a participatory project in which farmers work to improve soil fertility,
food security and nutrition through the use of grain or perennial legumes (e.g.
peanut or soyabean).
Formed at the outset, the Farmer Research Team (FRT) is a volunteer, farmer led
organization that conducts research and shares knowledge on behalf of and withthe community. The FRT began with 30 members in 7 pilot villages, and with theincrease in farmer participants has expanded to over 80 villages and 120 membersin the FRT.

Esther’s story, a project team member“I no longer spend time in the hospital with my children as I used to before I joined
the project. You can no longer see a malnourished child in our village. I thank theproject for showing us how we can farm without chemical fertilizers but be able toimprove both the soil health and family food security” Esther Maona.
Esther got involved in the project because she had acute malnutrition with herchildren. She joined when she learnt that SFHC is promoting agroecologicalfarming practices and child feeding practices. She learnt how to use legumes inorder to improve soil health, and that at the same time the legumes are a greatsource of proteins. Nutrition education, with recipe and knowledge sharing, wasinitiated by the project and she started feeding her children the legumes which
improved the nutritional status of her children.
Esther Maona, explaining the fruittrees and herbs that have beenplanted.

Esther now promotes and teaches these approaches, working as a Community
Promoter within the SFHC team in Ekwendeni.

Kamukhoti Mkandawire’s view, a Beneficiary“This farmer learning centre has a lot to take back home. If one can replicate
what we have seen and learnt from here, we should all be food secure and living
healthily.”
The farmers from the villages surrounding the Farmer Training & Learning centre
have benefited from the trainings on agroecology, and farmer-to-farmer learning by
sharing knowledge and seeds.

SFHC in Malawi Goals and Objectives
Our goal is to support rural Malawians in building sustainable, healthy, equitable,
resilient communities, using farmer-led, participatory research, ecologicalapproaches to farming, local indigenous knowledge and democratic processes,
while addressing economic, health and social inequalities at the household,community and national levels in Malawi.
Farmers and village leaders fromthe Area Development Committee
on a learning tour of the Farmer
Training & Learning Centre: allvery impressed with the PearlMillet crop which is one of the ‘lostcrops’ in the region

Malawi Farmer-to-Farmer Agroecology project (MAFFA) operations are
based on five main objectives:• Objective 1: Agroecological methods: To improve food security, nutritional
status, soils and sustainable agricultural practices of 6000 farming
households in central and northern Malawi.
• Objective 2: Participatory, farmer-to-farmer model: Test the potential for a
farmer-to-farmer model of education for scaling up use of agroecologicalmethods in Malawi.
• Objective 3: Local orange maize: Determine the potential for local orange
maize varieties as an acceptable socio-economic, cultural and biologicaloption to improve the vitamin A content of diets in Malawi.
• Objective 4: Youth and farmer livelihoods: Extend the agroecological,participatory approach to youth and farmer livelihoods, by using participatory
training methods in food processing and local food market development toimprove food security, dietary diversity and income for 200 youth and a farmer
association.
• Objective 5: Gender Equality: Women from participating households havegreater access to resources and increased decision-making power overagriculture, food security and income.

SFHC’s Examples of Good Practise:
WHAT Is Being Done
MAFFA was launched by SFHC and Ekwendeni Hospitalin October 2012, in collaboration with Western University,Chancellor College (University of Malawi), the University ofManitoba, Presbyterian World Service and Development,
Canadian Food Grains Bank and Cornell University, andwith support from Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs,
Trade and Development. Through farmer-to-farmer training
women, men and youth suffering from chronic food insecurity
learn from fellow farmers about agroecology to sustainably
manage their soils, increase the diversity and amount of foodin their diet, improve young children’s nutrition, and learn
about local food market development. Farmers and youth arealso developing local food enterprises to improve incomes
and boost local rural economies. The project takes placein northern Malawi, in Mzimba District, north of Ekwendeni;
and in Dedza District, in central Malawi. For more detailed
information see FAO Case Study on the MAFFA project andthe African Food Sovereignty Alliance case study on Legume
Diversification to Improve Soil Fertility.
The Carasso Research Project: building on research andcommunity development efforts started during the MAFFA
project, SFHC has partnered with the University of Western
Ontario in a 3.5 year project funded primarily by the Danieland Nina Carasso Foundation. The project aims to increase
understanding of how agroecological, participatory methods
foster sustainable production, equity and dietary diversity inrural Malawi. 475 farmers, from 10 farming villages of Dedza
and Mzimba Districts (4 implementation and 1 control village
from each site) agreed to participate, having been selectedbased on food insecurity, interest in agroecology, and accessto sufficient land.
Farmer-Led Agroecological Research in Malawi (FARM)
for Biodiversity: FARM follows SFHC’s model of farmerled participatory education. It will train Malawian farmers inspecies identification and collect feedback from farmers on
their perceptions of wild biodiversity through surveys andparticipatory methods like photo voice. The study will takeplace in the Mzimba District, drawing on the experiences ofmembers of the MAFFA project.
SFHC Farmer Research and Training Centre will be thebase for SFHC activities, providing space for classrooms,
offices, farmer meetings, a dining hall and a kitchen for recipe
testing and meal preparation. Dormitories are planned toallow visiting farmers a chance to stay and train onsite, and to
facilitate visits from collaborating researchers and students.
To demonstrate agroecological farming methods for training,a 1 acre garden is being developed with three main gardensand one orchard:• The Dryland Garden: Section A is planted with cereals(fingermillet, maize, pearl millet, and pumpkins)intercropped with beans, cowpeas and pigeon peas;
Section B is planted with mung beans, jugo beans andground nuts, mixed with non-legumes like okra, sunflower
and pearl millet; Section C is planted with tubers (cassavaand four varieties of sweet potato) mixed with beans andpigeon peas.
• The Vegetable Growing Area has five sections, including
legumes, leafy greens, fruits, herbs, roots and tubers.
• The Herb and Medicinal Growing Area has a wealth of
medicinal plants, herbs and spices.
• The Orchard includes collection pits that serve as a watersupply for banana trees.
Integrated curriculum on agroecology, climatechange, nutrition and social equity: This training material
was developed by a group of farmers, agricultural andsocial scientists, nutritionists, development organization
staff, theatre & communication specialists from Malawi andTanzania. It is designed so that rural people with limited
education can use it to teach other farming households how
to build more sustainable, resilient, healthy and equitable
rural communities. The team met regularly in ‘virtual’ space,compiled literature and held a week long participatory
workshop to develop the curriculum outline. Once a draft
was ready, farmers were trained by other farmers using thecurriculum, then it was revised and re-translated based on
farmer feedback. In Malawi, half of households had a ‘dramaenriched’ curriculum to test the impacts of drama in farmerled teaching, an example of which can be found here: Malawi
Curriculum Example.

SFHC’s Ways of Achieving Good
Practise: HOW It Is Done
Farmer Leadership: The project’s methodology relies
heavily on the Farmer Research Team (FRT), which is basedon a participatory model in which small farmer groups carryout research for the broader community (Ashby and Sperling,1995). Informed by village leaders about the project, asvolunteers, FRT members are voted in by their community,based on leadership ability, willingness to volunteer time tohelp others and their general interest in the project objectives.
The FRT members come from various social groups (e.g.
widows, divorced women, highly food insecure and well-off
farmers), with more than 50% being women. FRT members
have a critical role in farmer training, seed distribution, datacollection and awareness raising, and also provide informal
support to SFHC participants in agricultural and nutritional
issues.
Research partnerships: FRT has been effective at involving
farmers in the research process, both with a) practicallyfocused research amongst the farmer groups, b) institutional
research with Universities and research bodies, including
partnerships spanning Malawi, elsewhere in Africa and northAmerica.
Effective and Innovative Models of Participation: Thesebuild on the FRT farmer participation model, with additional
input brought in from participation specialists from outside theagroecology field. For example, in developing the Integrated
Curriculum, team members contributed modules whichwere then integrated using a ‘soap opera’ format, along withparticipatory activities, visual tools, stories & drama.

Permaculture Principles & Design in Action

From Inspiration to Action

Multi-functional design of inter-connected programmes: SFHC use a range ofinter-related projects and programmes. They directly or indirectly support andbenefit each other, creating feedback systems that enrich the outcomes of multiple
programmes. They include:

SFHC provides very valuable lessons
about linking up a) participatory farmerto-farmer research that is focused on
those farmers’ day-to-day needs toknow what works well, why and how
to do it, with b) research projects ledby external partners, driven by moreinstitutional needs in the academic anddevelopment sector. Linking these typesof research has helped access funding
to further develop, enrich and expand
the on-the-ground activities. Whatlessons from SFHC could help yourproject, community or network in relation
to:• Farmer-to-farmer training: Malawi Farmer-to-Farmer Agroecology project(MAFFA), including use of creative, participatory methods such as drama.
• Participatory research: Farmers do their own experiments and teach otherfarmers about their findings.
• In depth research projects: The Carasso Project on participatory methods inagroecology; Farmer-Led Agroecological Research in Malawi for Biodiversity(FARM for Biodiveristy) project.
• New integrated Curriculum on agroecology, climate change, nutritionand social equity: Developed by a collaborating group of scientists, farmers
and staff from development organizations in Malawi and Tanzania.
• SFHC Farmer Research and Training Centre: Under construction.
In permaculture education terms, the biggest lesson and recommendation isthe establishment of a Farmer Training and Learning Centre which is designed
by using permaculture/agroecology principles to incorporate a variety ofdemonstrations and which creates a visible and live learning tool.
In addition, what has worked very well in terms of education by doing,demonstrating and copying is:a) Project development and evolution,and scaling-up benefits in valuable ways
at the local level?
b) Permaculture and agroecology
education, teacher training anddemonstration that relates to local
needs?

• The initial mapping and design of the Farmer Training and Learning Centre into
different units (dryland, herbal, orchard, vegetable, forest etc).
• The rain water harvesting techniques in the field were designed well, withthe use of swales and contour ridges, and the rain water harvesting tankconstructed by the farmers (holding capacity of 55,000 litres).
Permaculture Principles in Action: observe & interact; multi-function; multisupply; relative location.

Legal Status, Structure & Size: Project started: 2000
The Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC) organization is a registered, farmer-led non-profit organization, based in
Ekwendeni, Malawi with an office in Dedza, Malawi.
There are 21 staff members and over 260 Farmer Research Team members (volunteers).
The organizational structure involves a Board of Trustees, made of up to 10 people, (currently with 6 members) of whom atleast half are local farmers with previously involvement in our work (MAFFA and previously) and half of whom are women.
There are 2 external members of the board who have been long term collaborators, namely Dr. Rachel Bezner Kerr (atCornell University) and Dr. Isaac Luginaah (at Western University). The Board of Trustees uses a consensus-based model ofdecision-making. The Board makes decisions about the activities of SFHC, which are then carried out by a Secretariat whoare the staff of the organization. There is also a General Assembly, made up of local farmers, who oversee the work of theBoard of Trustees and the Secretariat.

Contact Information
Website: http://soilandfood.org
Emails: Community development activities: Laifolo
Dakishoni sfhc@gmx.com, Research project andresults: Rachel Bezner Kerr rbeznerkerr@cornell.edu,
Friends of SFHC: friendsofsfhc@gmx.com
Address: FHC, PO Box 36, Ekwendeni, Malawi
International Permaculture Education Network (IPEN)
Increasing the effectiveness and coherence of permaculture education internationally
IPEN Case Studies have been enabled by the Lush Spring Prize