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Tourists and bureaucrats hurry across the line of cobble stones set in the concrete square outside the Berlin parliament buildings. On their way to the next meeting or sightseeing tour, they cross it as if it was the most natural thing in the world, without thinking.

A bronze plaque set periodically among the stones reminds everyone that takes the time to look that until late l989, a high concrete wall stood where the stones lie. It wasn’t there to keep people out but to keep people in – not in a prison, but in a country. The wall was heavily guarded. Anyone daring to cross it was shot dead without asking questions.

Once again I’m reminded of what a privilege it is to live in a free country like Canada. I have the right to come and go as I please. I have the right to speak my mind without being afraid of imprisonment or that my children will be ostracized. I don’t worry that my friends could be spies for the government.

Berlin wants to make sure those living there and visiting it recognize that privilege too. The wall separating East and West Germany – separating families, friends and ideologies – is torn down. But several segments have become permanent monuments. I was deeply moved by the brief stories, the clearly marked border, the sparse landscape around it.

The Holocaust Mahnmal (memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe) reminds us of another tragic part of Berlin’s past. It’s also Germany’s past and all of Europe, touching even Canada. The memorial is an uncomfortable arrangement of what looks like grey gravestones to me. The deeper you go into the rows, the more overpowering they become.

Later we visited the Jewish Museum. The Jews have been persecuted for ages past, not just during World War 2. The crusades were first directed against the Jews. The Pest during the dark ages was blamed on the Jews, resulting in more mass killings.

I was interested to read that Jewish children, both girls and boys, have always been taught to read and write – regardless of their social status. No wonder there are so many Jewish intellectuals – much of our music, literature, art, and science comes from the Jews (i.e. Felix Mendelssohn, Nelly Sachs, Albert Einstein). Many Nobel Prize winners are Jews.

Berlin is a fascinating place to visit – not just for its history, which alone would be worth it. It’s a vibrant young city, full of bikes and graffiti and great places to eat and party. We spent five days there with our two sons and daughter-in-law. Robert says it was long enough to find out what he really wants to see.

Already, after four days here Africa seems very far away, like a ‘wrinkle in time’ (title of Madeleine L’Engel’s children’s book). I’m used to wearing sweaters again and warming up my cherry pit bag in the microwave to take to bed with me. It’s been cold here – so cold the newly emerged corn is looking a sickly yellow. The cool weather crops are thriving. The canola is ending the blooming stage, the barley is mostly headed and the sugar beets don’t mind the cold either. Robert keeps commenting on how heavily fertilized the wheat fields look. Almost all cereal crops are winter crops – seeded last fall, so are knee high or more.

Our discussions, once dominated by African small farmer issues, now circle around the problem of care for Robert’s parents, and his mother’s increasing dementia. The family feels increased help is needed; the parents don’t agree. The tension between respecting your parents’ wishes and their real needs is difficult!

The village of Schleitheim offers a good network of services. Already a woman comes to clean once a week, a nurse comes to shower Grandma weekly and they receive a daily hot meal service. The problem is that Grandma insists she can do everything just fine herself. A strong self-sufficient woman who has raised seven children and long worked hard on the farm, it is impossible for her deteriorating mind to comprehend that she should now be incapable of looking after herself and Grandpa.

She’s finally accepted the meal service – I think it’s just become a part of life now. But she fights the cleaning lady. If no one is there she’ll send the lady packing again, with $50 to compensate her for coming. Thankfully she doesn’t know which day of the week it is anymore, so we can ‘cheat’ her.

It’s the hardest for Grandpa. He has to be here 24/7, listen to the same comments all day, fight for things, and look for everything she’s misplaced. He’s getting visibly tired – both of them are 87 years old.

When Africans hear we put our aging parents in senior lodges, they think we’re cruel. For them, it is only right to take care of their parents to their death. It’s not easy for them either – usually there is a good amount of sacrifice involved.

I tell them our lodges are safe, caring places where our parents are well taken care of. There are no such places in Zambia for ordinary citizens.

Even for us, the idea of eventually settling Grandma and Grandpa in the lodge is very difficult. But just in the last few days again I’ve seen how much patience parental care could take. It’s easier to go to Africa…

During high school I was a member of the Future Farmers Club. But the only thing I clearly remember is the fishing trip with them. I caught my first fish – a huge rainbow trout. But of agriculture itself I remember nothing.

Agriculture is taken seriously at Kenyan schools. Robert and I spent five days with African friends at Nyakach, close to Lake Victoria. Edward is Chaplain at a private high school with 840 girls in junior and secondary years. 429 are enrolled in the agriculture program.

Mrs. Ruto (who shares the same name as the former agriculture minister of Kenya) teaches agriculture to the girls. She studied agriculture and biology at the university near Njoro, where the Canadian International Development Agency sponsored the wheat research station for many years.

The senior girls all planted an individual maize plot as part of their final project. Mrs. Ruto asked us to inspect them. The plots look good – the corn is a healthy green and hardly a weed to be seen. Planted mid April the corn has to the end of the rainy season in August to mature.

On the other side of the fence is the government primary school with around 500 children in grades one to eight. They too have a vegetable plot. They’re growing tomatoes this season. Each child brought a stick to school with them that morning, to fence the tomatoes in. They were planted the week before, but neighbourhood children uprooted them over the weekend. Who knows why?

Edward took us to a neighbour farmer, saying it would only be a short visit. He obviously doesn’t know

farmers that well! We spent a good part of the day with Ralphael Owaka and his wife Phelesia. Ralphael received a trophy for Best Farmer in Nyanza Province last year. For good reason – this family does everything on their small farm and more that we are trying to teach our farmers in Zambia. Besides practising conservation farming, he also does Permaculture, or Agriforestry as some call it – planting rows of trees among the crops.

I asked him if he knew about Moringa – of course, he grows it. Artemesia? Why, yes – he grows that too, and many other herbs. What doesn’t this man do? The best part is that he teaches others what he is doing so successfully himself. Every Tuesday he spends several hours training local farmers – for free.

The wonderful thing about being a farmer is that you have instant friends everywhere. We went to visit our friends, but we made new ones in the process and learned so much again!

A year ago we gave L a loan to buy a treadle sewing machine and start a tailoring business. Today she repaid half the loan, as agreed. I’m so proud of her – she’s had a tough year, but she was determined to repay on time.

L was diagnosed with AIDS about a year and a half ago and started treatment with antiretroviral medication (ARVs). Today she looked much thinner than when I last saw her two months ago. A bout of malaria took its toll. I asked her if she was taking her Moringa powder. She wasn’t – the nurse at the clinic told her not to take it while she was on ARVs.

As L told me, many don’t know anything about Moringa. Not a medicinal plant, it wouldn’t interfere with ARVs. It is a powerhouse of nutrition and would really help L to regain and maintain her health.

Hedwig Mueller, who works with Dawn Trust Community Center in Ndola, recommends that AIDS patients take Moringa powder, Artemesia and Lemon Grass tea to boost their weakened immune systems. All can be quite easily grown in tropical countries. Some people are using the herbal combination as a substitute for ARVs when they are not available or the side effects prove too problematic.

See www.anamed.net/AIDS_Ribbon.pdf (click to download PDF) for an interesting panel discussion on this topic.

Stanley and Hilda Ngulube promoted Moringa as a food supplement at their stand at the Mufulira Agriculture field day a few weeks ago. They grow over 600 Moringa trees on their farm. Stanley’s pamphlet says: “gram for gram Moringa has twice the protein of yoghurt, seven times the vitamin C of oranges, three times the potassium of bananas, four times the vitamin A of carrots and four times the calcium of milk.” 100 grams of Moringa powder is about a cup.

The pamphlet also says: “The World Health Organization has promoted Moringa as an alternative to improve food supplements to treat malnutrition.”

Many NGOs and health workers are following suit. Moringa has proven to be very helpful in treating and preventing malnutrition in children and the sick. In some countries Moringa is eaten regularly as a vegetable.

Stanley highly recommends reading Dr. Monica Marcu’s book “The Miracle Tree”. Dr. Marcu writes of her clinical and laboratory experience with Moringa and its nutrients, benefits and uses.

To learn more about this wonderful plant and how it is being used to treat malnutrition and other health problems in developing countries check out: www.treesforlife.org and www.moringatreeoflife.com.

Tomorrow morning, May 5, we fly out of Lusaka, Zambia for a week in Kenya to visit our Sudanese friends. It’s been a wonderful 2.5 months here. Already we’re talking of ‘next year’.

The ‘board room’ under the spreading branches of a huge indigenous tree seems a fitting place to discuss carbon credits for planting trees and forests. Nick O’Connor operates Rainland Timbers, a medium sized sawmill enterprise about 15 kilometers outside Kitwe, Zambia. He tells us Zambia is No. 2 in the world for deforestation of trees.

Most of the trees are chopped down to make charcoal, which is the main source of fuel for cooking. The Copperbelt (where we are) is the worst area in Zambia for deforestation.

O’Connor also says that in 10 years there won’t be any pine trees left in Zambia, which will devastate the timber industry. Driving through the country we’ve seen the large pine forests that were planted about 40 years ago. As they’ve been harvested, there has not been any replanting.

O’Connor is working to help change that. Together with some other members of the private sector, he’s sent a proposal to the Zambian government for the Zambian carbon credit program. The government has some plans in place, but to this point has not involved the private sector. (The African Carbon Credit Exchange is in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia.)

One of the main concerns the group raises is the issue of established forests. The proposed program doesn’t allow for any compensation for native bush or planted trees that were there for many years already.

“The big thing in Zambia is that we’re not paying for the old carbon. It’s nonsense, it’s absolutely nonsense,” O’Connor says. Without a monetary incentive to protect the established forests they will continue to disappear at an alarming rate. When the owner gets paid to keep the trees on his land, he will refuse to let others come to burn charcoal on it. “If we’re not paying the guys with trees, it defeats the whole logic.”

I wrote about that same issue from a western Canadian perspective last summer. We’d seen good crop land being planted to trees for carbon offset programs, while in the same county marginal land was being cleared for pasture or crops. Because the established bush is not part of the carbon credit program, there’s no incentive to keep it.

The other main component of O’Connor’s proposal is to adopt perma culture as a changed form of agriculture. The idea originates in Australia. Regular crops are planted between rows of trees, which can be indigenous, fruit bearing, or for timber.

Perma Culture would be especially beneficial for small scale farmers. They could gain some extra income on their fields by planting rows of trees between their crops. You’ll hear more about this from me. I need to do some more research first.

The rough brick walls vibrate with the buzz of voices; dark heads close together as they discuss the exercise – a budget for a business using 500,000 kwacha ($110). Seeing the excitement of these Mpongwe village people as they learn to apply business concepts to their lives is gratifying.

Mama Peter tells us her profit after two weeks of baking scones is 100,000 Zambian Kwacha (about $22). “What’s your income?” I ask her. She doesn’t understand the question. I take her through the steps. “How many scones do you bake with that amount of flour?” She was quite uncertain. Together we figure out she makes 1000 scones, selling them for 500 kwacha each, making 500,000 kw. That’s only a profit of 50,000 kw (just over $10).

Later some of the younger women approach Pastor Jessy, their leader. “There’s something wrong with those figures,” they maintain. Together they do the budget calculations and realize where she went wrong.

This doesn’t sound like big stuff. But it is for these people. Many don’t have a good education, but they’re hungry for knowledge, especially business knowledge. The ability to work out their true profit or loss is important in knowing how to bargain for a good price. So often they are at the mercy of some unscrupulous trader.

Around 40 men and women attended the financial and business management workshop I was teaching. All small scale farmers, most of the women are also engaged in small businesses like Mama Peter. What a different group than the big farmers we visited with last week!

My goal was to take them through the processes involved in beginning and establishing a business. Which business should I do? – Forecasting and budgeting, keeping good records, a simple bookkeeping system. – Evaluating the business and what do to with profit.

We didn’t get far – we finished the budgeting. I find it such a challenge to teach these groups. We always start late, cutting down on teaching time. Then there’s the translation, which also takes time (but gives me a moment to think). How much do these people understand – the elders didn’t seem to pick up much, but it’s the younger ones we’re trying to reach.

As Pastor Jessy commented – the women have the most creative ideas for business. They are the ones that are on time, eager to learn all they can. That’s in line with what most development studies recommend: invest in the women.

There’s quite a fair sized chunk of the farm loan up for redistribution in the next months. Together we’ve decided to give the women substantially more for small businesses. This time they’ll have to submit a budget for their business to get the loans!

I’m surprised at the feeling of coming home. I didn’t realize I missed it – the sight of big wide fields spreading over gentle hills and valleys. We’ve spent the last two months working with small scale farmers here in Zambia, who rarely farm more than a hectare. The commercial farmers in Mukushi operate on a thousand hectares or more each.

Driving with Rassie du Toit in his Toyota 4WD pickup, we almost forget we’re in Zambia. Rassie takes us down to the Agri-Options cooperative grain storage facility of which he is a founding member. Rows and rows of grain bags lie to the right of the road – filled with soya beans, maize and wheat. Some of them still hold wheat from the 2008 crop – Cargill bought it but it hasn’t moved yet.

To the left, eight shiny Westeel bins with a total holding capacity of 27,000 tonnes have just been erected. Workers are scrambling to get the new unloading facility operating before the new maize and soybean harvest, which is already underway. While we watch, the first loads of soybeans arrive. Rassie is happy – he’s been pestering them for the last two weeks.

The cooperative’s 17 members produce a total of over 65,000 tonnes of produce annually – maize (corn), soybeans and wheat. Almost all of that is stored at Agri-Options. Together they produce up to 20% of Zambia’s total wheat production.

The soybeans are all pressed into oil on site. At the moment the press is quiet. Bags of soy cake are piled up – until they can sell it they can’t press anymore. The market seems saturated at the moment.

In a country as small as Zambia – 11 million people and most of them with little purchasing power – the market is quickly saturated. 12 years ago, when Rassie first came to Zambia from South Africa, Zambia wasn’t producing enough maize, its staple food, to feed the country. Now it’s overproducing. Exporting south isn’t an option – South Africa and Zimbabwe produce cheaper than Zambia. One major reason is distance to inputs. That leaves the Congo to the north. At the moment they are shipping 90 tonnes of maize a day into the Congo, which helps.

Rassie maintains that it is only by value adding that commercial farmers in Zambia can survive. The next step for them is to bottle the soya oil themselves – ready for the super market shelf. A mill is also in the planning stages.

The challenges of commercial farming in Zambia sound huge but Rassie is positive. It’s a great place to live, a great place to raise children, he says. The buildings in progress on his farm are evidence enough that he believes in a strong future.

I slept with the heaviness of Susan’s AIDS sentence on me. I was so happy to hear that she finally agreed to go for testing; now she’ll have access to the ARV drugs that will save her life. But hearing that final ‘positive’ was still hard.

Susan’s husband died about eight years ago. Pastor Jessy and his wife Loveness suspected it was AIDS. Why didn’t they speak with Susan then? It’s doubtful Susan would have appreciated them talking to her, as she wasn’t sick herself. AIDS is still a very delicate subject and it’s easier to deny facts than deal with them.

More than a year ago Susan became ill. Loveness has been visiting her regularly. Susan thought she was sick because her late husband’s family was bewitching her. Over time Loveness was able to convince her that she wasn’t bewitched; that she should go for AIDS testing and get the medication to become healthy again. So yesterday they went together.

Susan’s story is so common it makes me cry. Pastor Jessy tells us few of his people make it past the age of 40 anymore. The prevailing culture and high illiteracy rates make it hard for people to really understand how AIDS is spread. Superstitions are rampant. And people continue to die.

We were in Mpongwe for the Easter conference of the Mpongwe district ACOP churches. Over 500 people attended the weekend, from Thursday night to Easter Sunday. We were teaching the Foundations of Farming on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. Looking out over that sea of faces, most of them under 35, I felt such a mix of emotions.

There is so much potential there, so much energy and life in the youth. But what a challenge to give them tools to become adults that will beat the grasp of poverty and disease.

And who are we to talk to them about hunger and poverty? We have everything; we drive away in our air conditioned car to a house with running water and a fridge full of food. We were able to put our kids through university.

And yet we have to talk. We have the knowledge to help them grow better crops so they can beat hunger. We have knowledge about AIDS – both prevention and treatment, so they don’t die before they need to. We’ve built up a relationship over the last five years so they listen to us.

It’s not easy. It takes time and cultural sensitivity. It takes strength and courage on their side, and on ours. But together we are working towards a better tomorrow for Susan and for her children. We have to take up the challenge.

“There’s no hunger in our people anymore since we started the farming projects with the churches,” Pastor Jessy tells us. I can’t quite comprehend that – the plots are too small to feed any amount of people. He explains: as the people get together to work in the church field, they learn to plant, apply fertilizer, and weed timely and properly. They attend the workshops where we talk together about better methods of farming. Then they go home and apply that knowledge on their own fields – and grow better crops.

Pastor Jessy says that in their church they used to help about ten families during the hunger period (January – February, before the new corn crop is ready). Now they only have one old man. The nine other churches are experiencing the same thing.

It appears the Mpongwe farm project is doing what development projects are supposed to do – it’s changing mindsets, affecting poverty in a positive way and it’s being done by the African people on the ground. We’re only there on the sidelines. We seem to be doing something right in spite of ourselves!

So we’re discussing how to expand the program. Other districts are clamouring to become part of the project.Thankfully Pastor Jessy is good at working out the needed structures and controls for growth. We’ve done well so far, we don’t want to fail now.

Last night we met with Bukuumo Cooperative. Together with Robert and me, we were seven. The treasurer never bothered to turn up or send an apology. It’s difficult to make good decisions without adequate financial information, which hasn’t been forthcoming for some time. What does he have to hide, people wonder? A new treasurer was appointed, finally! The chairman, Mr. Mate, got the job of trying to get the books and records from Tito. I still clearly feel the frustration of trying to do the same last year…

We agree the old and decrepit trucks need to be sold. Robert and I insist the debt to the Canadian investors be repaid – a bank would have demanded it back long ago. How to handle loans is part of learning to do business.

They still believe in the cooperative. Some major adjustments need to be made but it’s probably good to keep it alive. Much can change in the future, and if they find a viable project and someone to do it, the structures will be in place. Hopefully they can keep at least one piece of land. Their biggest problem continues to be time – everyone is busy. They want the coop – but are they committed enough to ever making it really work?

“Poverty is not what you have; it is what you make of what you have.”

Robert and I joined about 25 others – Zambian farmers, teachers, community development workers – last week at Masaiti Farm Training Center learning the practical truth of this saying.

Foundations for Farming (FfF) is a concept developed in Zimbabwe. FfF seeks to help the small scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa grow enough food to feed their families and support them adequately, using conservation farming methods.

Commercial farmers produce 6-10 tonnes per hectare of maize. Most small scale farmers produce 2 tonnes (40 bags) per hectare, on only 1/2 hectare or less. An average sized African family annually needs 30 bags of maize as food. Too many don’t produce that.

FfF aims to teach farmers to grow 6 tonnes per hectare. At even 1/2 hectare, that’s enough to feed a family and sell 30 bags. All they need is a hoe and seed. How do they do it?

FfF teaches a message, not just a method. They believe a change of heart and attitude is necessary for lasting change. Too often the poor see themselves as victims; not as responsible individuals capable of changing their future. God is for the church, irrelevant for the rest of life. We were taught instead that doing a good job as farmers is part of true worship.

Four principles form the base of the training – on time, at standard, no wastage, with joy. Practically that means preparing the land, planting, weeding, etc on time; proper depth and spacing, right amounts of inputs, quality inputs; no ploughing of the land (waste of energy and resource), no burning of the trash; when you do things right you can work with joy.

On farm demonstrations with opportunity to practice ourselves rounded the lessons. We visited a farmer who is successfully applying these methods and reaping a bountiful harvest. One former student came to lecture on vegetable growing and showed pictures of her crop – telling of how she learned to grow the same amount of maize on two hectares as she had on ten before.

We learned to make compost properly – a valuable fertilizer capable of producing equal to commercial fertilizers. Every farmer in this country has the ingredients for compost in his backyard. Every farmer has something!

The training confirmed much of our experience – not just as farmers training farmers, but as development workers. Often Aid gives to those who have nothing – encouraging those who have, to have nothing too. People are kept in perpetual poverty, because it is convenient. In time it becomes a pattern. The principles of FfF have changed that for many. People are taking back their destinies. That’s exciting stuff to witness.