Collaborating to ‘drought proof’…
In Zimbabwe, a local food plant champion (Buhera) has negotiated with a University in Nigeria, and Marondera University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (MUAST) to import drought resistant seeds to Zimbabwe for use in the Buhera traditional food plant garden. Once received, MUAST will propogate the seeds and share with the local community garden.
Other successful ventures…
Zimbabwe
The FPI local food plant champion in Harare is training at a local permaculture centre in compost making, conservation agriculture and ecologically appropriate food plants for other urban farmers…she assists 14 urban farmers with some teaching others in cooking and growing traditional food plants. Cooking demonstrations at a local school promote the nutritional value of these foods with people willing to buy additional meals.
The manager of Donga Rural Outreach Centre received the Village Development Committees Merit Certificate 3rd position in small grain production highlighting the cross-sector promotion of traditional food plants in rural Zimbabwe.
In Mberengwa Village, a local food plant champion harvested sufficient sorghum to feed her family for the year, along with groundnuts and is spreading the word.
In Bulawayo, FPI are partnering with Cluster Agricultural Development Services to hopefully launch, print and distribute FPI posters, and 2 books translated into Ndebele.
Papua New Guinea
Boxes of books and posters are eagerly waited for in PNG by ‘lovePNG’…Jennifer Baing-Waiko’s organisational. Another food plants compendium for PNG is in final stages…once funding for printing received, it will be a key reference book for PNG food plants.
At City Mission Port Moresby, FPI are assisting an agricultural trainer with basic agricultural training information for his 3-6 month training program.
Vietnam
Collaboration and partnership with the University of Tasmania is still under negotiation to integrate FPI posters and resources into their Vietnam country projects.
Future Projects…
- East Timor…food plant research is ongoing with a view to partnering with a local organisation.
- Promoting existing posters and resources for PNG, Zimbabwe, Solomon Islands, India, and Vietnam.
- Trialling an online traditional food plant resource hub for Zimbabwe to allow local collaboration, networking, information sharing (recipes, photos, resources etc) and community building. If successful in Zimbabwe, the concept will be introduced into other project countries.
You can help…
If you wish to help research, develop, and produce information to enable the hungry to feed themselves, please click on “Donate to this Project” in the right sidebar. Thank you!
All gifts are tax deductible and will benefit this project in their entirety except for bank fees.
