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We came back to Switzerland just in time. Last night Robert’s father, Heinrich Stamm, 89, suffered a serious heart attack. All seven children were able to make it to his bed during the night to say their goodbyes. This morning he said ‘Hello’ again, although very weakly. It seems he’s not as ready to quit as we thought last night!

He never was a quitter. He was a starter, someone who was always on the forefront of change. A farmer, like his father before him, and most of the people around him, he grew up plowing the fields with oxen, and walking gravel and dirt streets. Phenomenal changes have happened since he was a boy in Schleitheim.

When jeeps began to replace oxen as drawing power, Heinrich was the first one in the province to own one. When he bought it the salesman told him, “don’t worry about how to drive it, your boys will show you”. When chemicals were first introduced as crop protection, Heinrich was the one to own a sprayer and go custom spraying throughout the area – without mask and gloves of course.

As almost everywhere in Switzerland in the forties, fields and pastures in Schleitheim were very small and scattered. Heinrich was forefront in the committee to ‘defrag’ the fields, forming blocks for each owner for more practical operations. There was a lot of friction – high emotions are attached to land. But he was never afraid of conflict. The Stamms now owned a sizeable block called Emmerland, two kilometres from the village. There, on top of the hill, they built the farm site, the Emmerhof where I would come as a young Canadian bride in 1979. It was one of only a few farm sites situated outside the village.

Many farmers fight change. Heinrich embraced it. When we wanted to sell the Emmerhof and immigrate to Canada, he supported us, travelling to Alberta every spring for the next ten years to help with seeding.

Community involvement was a matter of course for him. He was president of the local conservative party for many years, board member of the agriculture cooperative, elder in his church, and the local judge for smaller complaints. Born with a cleft palate, he had a speech impediment that made it difficult for newcomers to understand him. Often asked to chair meetings or read reports, he would quote the Bible saying when no one else will speak, the stones must cry out.

If we forget all his other sayings (and he has one for every situation, it seems), we’ll remember his frequent admonishment, ‘sind barmherzig’ – be merciful. He would have been very good at cross cultural relationships. (He was quite accommodating with his Canadian daughter-in-law!)

It’s a great honor for me to be part of his family. It doesn’t look like he’ll stay with us much longer. But as long as he does, we’ll be with him as much as we can, hold the wine glass up to his lips when he asks for it, repeat Psalms 23 with him, pray and do whatever it takes to show him we love him.

Peanut butter – which one? Smooth or crunchy? There’s many there, including the Zambian natural peanut butters I like so much. I pick a smooth one, ‘It’s Wild’, which says “By buying this product you are supporting wildlife conservation and rural livelihoods in Zambia.”

I’ve spread my bread with ‘It’s Wild’ for some years now. But only recently did I find out what’s behind it. John Chongo, one of the small farmers we work with in Serenje, told me that he grew soybeans for COMACO, who also supplied him with a treadle pump for his market vegetable garden. Now I was curious. Who is COMACO? Community Markets for Conservation started in the Luangwa Valley, in Eastern Zambia. Home to Zambia’s two largest wildlife parks, the valley was being threatened by a host of environmental issues – slashing trees to burn charcoal and make new fields for cash strapped farmers, illegal trapping, fishing and hunting of wildlife. The same actions threatening the wildlife park were coming out of the threat of hunger and poverty of the people living in or near the parks. COMACO brought a unique solution to these problems.

COMACO trains producer groups in environmentally sustainable farming practices, especially conservation farming. Processing plants are set up for easily grown local crops, whose products (like my peanut butter) are sold on major super market shelves. COMACO, a not-for-profit organisation, pays a premium price for these crops, enabling local farmers to earn a sustainable living. Members must adhere to bylaws that prohibit practices that harm the environment, and adopt environmentally friendly agriculture production methods. Using conservation farming farmers no longer have to clear new land and risk conflict with wild animals. They can achieve food security and added income. They stop burning crop residues and begin to mulch the soil, preventing flood like runoff during the rainy season.

Farmers are encouraged to attend annual field days. Regular visits by extension officers help them solve problems, and ensure they aren’t engaged in poaching or illegal charcoal production. Farmers who consistently apply conservation farming practises get a ‘conservation dividend’ – a cash reward.

COMACO has a wide support base, including various NGOs and government agencies, local and foreign businesses. Besides Peanut Butter and peanuts as snacks, COMACO sells rice, dried bean products, honey, maize, and Yummy Soy, a Soybean/Maize porridge high in protein that can be blended hot or cold. All are available at Shoprite, one of Zambia’s largest supermarkets, and various other grocery stores. ‘It’s Wild’ has become a respected brand. My peanut butter bread tastes even better now!

The old grandmother and I share the reed mat, our fingers deftly stripping the maize cobs. At first my kernels fly all over, the women laughing at my attempts. But then I get in the rhythm of it. It’s a peaceful job, here with the old women. Nearby, at the village hammer mill, a group of chattering children and women wait in the shade for their turn to have their maize milled into the mealie meal for their staple food, Nshima.

Everywhere people are harvesting their maize fields. Often the whole family takes part. Those living further away camp out at the edge of the field.( We almost drove into a family resting beside and on the trail, the toddler asleep where we needed to pass through.) Elderly couples labour together. Mothers work with their babies on their back, ripping off the cobs, peeling them out of the husks, then stepping on the stalk to lay it to the ground.

Around them are the commercial farmers, with their big combines. But even the combines are having problems picking up the maize. A mean storm last February laid a lot of the crop flat. That has repercussions for farmers like Jessy Mpupulwa, who grow 40 hectares of maize and rely heavy on labour to handpick the cobs. That labour has shifted to the big farms this year; to pick up what the combines are leaving behind.

This harvest Jessy is stooking all the maize, before picking the cobs, in an effort to reduce theft. It’s easier to see thieves like that. Yesterday he came home very perturbed. Whole stooks had been moved to the bush and shelled. Last night he waited out in the field for a few hours after dark, with a slingshot and rocks, hoping to catch the thieves at work. None came that night. Jessy isn’t sleeping well right now…

Febbie and her husband sleep under the branches of a low tree during harvest. It could be a hiker’s campsite. But this is one of owners guarding their precious food supply. It’s a common sight to see grass huts for guards at the edge of fields.
One farmer told me that the people around a bigger farmer like Jessy, (but not big enough like the really big commercial farmers who put electric fences around their fields) often stop planting fields after awhile. They just help themselves to the maize in front of their house when the owner is not in sight. No one can keep watch over all the maize all the time.

Harvest is supposed to be a time of rejoicing. Sometimes it’s the thieves that are doing the rejoicing though!

The first thing I did at the Kitwe Provincial Agricultural Show was to get an HIV test done. That’s because Robert wanted to check out the tools and equipment at the Sandvik site , a Swedish company supplying industrial tools and equipment. My nurse friend Margaret and I checked out Sandvik’s Social Responsibility Program, which was offering free testing of blood pressure, blood sugar, malaria and HIV. It is part of the routine screening Sandvik offers its employees and their families every three months. The Zambian government asks all corporations to have a Social Responsibility Program. Not all do, but Sandvik does, also providing many community services such as career training for the disabled. Julie was there in her wheelchair, taking orders for the beautiful embroidery and tailoring pieces her group was offering for sale.

Zambia takes agriculture training seriously. Prisoners, soldiers and students are taught how to farm, to enable them to at least grow their own food. A beautifully tended garden with shiny red tomatoes, dark eggplant, carrots and much more, invited visitors to check out the Zambian National Service. Besides agriculture, soldiers are offered training in carpentry, metal work, tailoring and making shoes.

Kamfinsa Prison also had a vegetable garden in front of their building, along with pottery, furniture and metal work. They aim to empower prisoners with skills that will provide them a living upon release. The instructor explaining their system to us claims that few reoffend.

What can all be grown in the Copperbelt Province could be seen in the Fair hall, where all seven districts had a display featuring produce and products from their area – maize, millet, wheat, groundnuts, beans, cassava, yams, rice and much more. There were all the tropical fruits – papaya, pineapple, citrus, the jams, the dried vegetables and fruits. It’s all there. It can all be done. I wish we could have brought our farmers here to see this, to be inspired by what is possible. Or would they think it is beyond them, they couldn’t do it?

Our friends Stanley and Hilda Ngulube were there with their Moringa products. Stanley now has over 1000 Moringa trees, selling Moringa leaf powder in capsules and loose, tea leaves, seeds and seedlings. Captive posters on the wall extolled the virtues of this miracle tree, and a TV set showed a program the local television had done on Stanley’s farm recently. He claims no one would need to use expensive food supplements if they would take Moringa powder regularly. Moringa trees are easy to grow and their leaves contain all the nutrients a person needs.

It was a great show – complete with food stands, horse and dog shows, market street, kiddie rides, face painting and a huge crowd. No one wants to miss the Agriculture Show!

(My own camera disappeared – lost? stolen? – last week. So am borrowing cameras for pictures for now.)

July (that’s his name) gave the most practical lesson on budgeting I have heard yet. We were with a group of small scale farmers in the Serenge area here in Zambia.

“You have 50 bags of maize (corn),” July says. “How many do you need for grinding?” (That’s for immediate use.) Two, the group answers.
“How many to trade for fish and meat?” Two, they say again.
“How many for seed?” Two again.
“How many for funerals?” One. This is a very real issue. Every family experiences funerals and are expected to help with food.
“Two bags for visitors, five, maybe ten for school fees, and ten for our own food.” The rest can be sold, if there is any left.

Planning and budgeting money and resources is new for most of these people. I taught the first very basic lesson a year ago. John Chongo says his house has been changed since then. They are moving forward because they have the resources when they need them. July tells us he used to just use money as it came. If there was money in his pocket, he used it. When someone came to the house to ask for food, or his brother came for help for school fees for his nephew, he would just pull out another maize bag and give. Without planning. He doesn’t do that anymore. He still gives, but he plans for it, and also now demands that those coming to him plan. He is prepared for the future. Things have changed very much for him.

These are the stories that make us feel our time here has brought at least something. But it also shows us how much still needs to be done. These two, July and John, are the leaders. If they weren’t planning, it is likely no one else was either. It’s difficult to find lessons anywhere that are basic enough to teach these people. So I’ve made up my own. If anyone knows where I could find something they think might work, I would be grateful!

We toured some of the fields with the farmers. Most of them look really good. Many farmers are using the conservation farming methods on at least a small portion. When I look at the fields, I think there will be no hunger in these families. But a poll at the workshop says otherwise. Many have no food left in the house by February – with at least two months to go to harvest. That means they have to try to find piecework, or beg or buy if they have money. July is certain it is lack of planning. The leaders have their work cut out for them!

We’re visiting with our farm project leaders. “Do you remember Jennifer?” Jessy asks us. We do. We visited her field last year. She was one of the widows who received a small farming loan and we were impressed with what she had done. “She died last year,” Jessy continued. The story distresses me: Jennifer had been sickly for some time and Jessy was trying to get her to go to the hospital. Finally she was so sick, he took her himself. She tested positive for the HIV/AIDS virus and the hospital started her on the antiretroviral (ARV) medication. Jessy took her home, showing the family how to administer the drugs. A month later when he inquired, he found she was not taking them. Needless to say, by that time it was too late and she died – with the life saving medication in her house. Why???

The stigma of HIV/AIDS is still so very high in Zambia. Despite continued sensitization campaigns on TV, Radio, Billboards, in churches and before or after any type of public meetings, people of all ages, income status and education still do not go for testing out of fear of the results and what those around them would say. Or if they go, they don’t tell anyone. When forced to take the test some, like Jennifer, will die rather than admit to the disease by taking the ARVs.

Not Eliness. This 37 year old single mother publicly announces her status if asked. In 2004 she began feeling sick and feared the diagnosis. Two friends encouraged her to go for testing (they had both gone and were both positive) saying there were now drugs to treat the virus. She also was positive. Immediately she told her mother and late sister, which says something about her family. Most won’t say anything, afraid their family will shun them, will send them away because of the shame, or they will lose their jobs and friends. Eliness feels coming out with her status gives her the opportunity to learn to live more positively with the virus. It also gives others courage to ask her for advice and confide in her. She is a strong encourager in her community.

Eliness came to a Natural Medicine of the Tropics seminar a year ago. Suffering under the negative side effects of the ARVs, she had a strong desire to learn more about healing herbs. I visited with Eliness a few days ago. She successfully grew the Artemisia plants I gave her and propagated more. She still takes her ARVs but adds a daily cup of Artemisia tea and regularly consumes Moringa leaves. She insists she feels much better now. Artemisia is known to boost the immune system, and Moringa is often called the miracle plant because of its nutritional and healing properties. Eliness is a vibrant healthy woman today.

The stigma is all the more devastating as there isn’t a family in this country that isn’t affected in some way – either one of the members is HIV positive, or they are caring for the orphans of those that died.

I just wish there were more Elinesses and less Jennifers! In time it will come.

Before Christine Daka took the Foundations for Farming course at Masaiti, Zambia she was producing 400 bags (50 kilograms each) of maize on 10 hectares, a good average for a small scale farmer. Her first crop after the course produced 400 bags on two hectares. That’s a good average for a commercial farmer. One a small scale farmer only dreams of. We visited Christine yesterday. She is part of the two to five percent success rate her instructor Boet Pretorius talks about. Why does she succeed where others fail?

“Start small, then when you can do it well, you can increase,” she always tells people looking for her advice. But that’s not advice they want to hear. She tells us of one farmer who insisted on growing 15,000 cabbages his very first try. She tried hard to stop him. He thought workers would plant, God would water, and he could harvest and make big money. He didn’t harvest one cabbage. “They were all chewed,” Christine said, by aphids. Now he is ready to listen, after losing a lot of money. It is a typical story. Why start small and make little money, when you can make big money quick? That you can lose big money quick isn’t part of their thinking.

Christine started farming small, after separating from her husband. Her first farm was a three hour walk away. “You are tired just from walking, then you have to work all day!” she says. But she had three children to provide for. Now she maintains a large market vegetable garden in her sister’s backyard , owns a two hectare plot outside the town of Luanshya where she grows more vegetables, and plants corn, soybeans and peanuts on 15 hectares in Mpongwe. She grows a quality product that customers come to her gate for.

What impresses me most about Christine is that she doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. “You don’t have enough education,” her brother told her when she asked him for money to attend the Conservation Farming five day seminar. She went and excelled. “There is no market for soybeans,” farmers say. But she had no trouble selling hers. “Soybeans are too difficult to harvest without a combine,” they said. She designed a unique harvesting table.

Christine has a wide reputation now, and is constantly being called on for advice. She is very happy to teach, wishing all Zambian farmers would learn and apply what she knows. Then Zambia would be a prosperous nation, she believes. Small scale farmers struggling to provide food for the family get free consulting services. They need to eat too, she says. She has learned to charge those able to make a good profit.

If ever we wonder if small scale farmers can do well, Christine reminds us it is most definitely possible. “Don’t take shortcuts and work hard,” she would say.

I’m waiting for the rest of me to catch up with my body, which is in Nairobi, Kenya. Yesterday afternoon we were still in Switzerland. The last apple trees stood like brides among golden canola fields and blue sage blooming in the meadows. The roads were smooth and clean; the air pure after the last rain.

It’s raining in Nairobi too. It’s the beginning of the long rains here, which arrived almost a month late, and then heavy. This part of Kenya has two rainy seasons, a short one (December to January) and a long one – March to July. Many farmers plant two rain fed crops, unlike Zambia where there is just one long rainy season from November to April, then nothing at all.

The streets are as congested as usual or more so. Our driver said that Nairobi now has close to four million residents and keeps growing. We got into part of morning rush hour – cars bumper to bumper, most of them with dents. No wonder, as they keep trying to push in, just inches from each other. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to the process. Our driver said, “Just don’t make eye contact with another driver.”

The open sewer canals along the street are full of tepid grey water, and garbage fermenting. I suppose I notice it more coming directly from Switzerland, which is known for being very clean. When I see how crowded the streets constantly are, it’s no wonder they’re not clean, really.

We had chai (Indian tea) with our Sudanese friends this morning. Edward told us about farming in his home village in southern Sudan. I’ve read that South Sudan has the capacity to feed all of Africa. The land is extremely fertile. If there is peace, Edward says, the people have no problem feeding themselves. He maintains it’s relatively peaceful right now, despite the recent squirmishes. He hopes to retire soon and go back to his home village to farm. Funny this idea, also very prevalent in Zambia, that when you retire from your job in the city, you return to your village and farm. Canadian farmers do it the other way around!

Sudan also has two rainy seasons. They plant millet and sorghum as their staple crops, followed by sesame. They also grow tomatoes, potatoes and other vegetables in smaller gardens. The fields are prepared and planted together as a community – going from one field to the other, and also harvested together. They don’t burn the crop residue, but leave it there to rot, as fertilizer. This is something we’ve tried convincing our Zambian farmers to do.

Hardly arrived, and already I’m preaching herbal medicine. Edward has an arthritic shoulder that’s giving him grief. I told him of our Zambian friend who cured his arthritis by chewing a spoonful of papaya seeds a day. Sounds easy, but the things are terribly bitter – I’ve tried it. He can also ease the pain by rubbing a mix of pounded piri-piri chillies and oil on the joint. Easy on the chillies – too much can burn.

It`s mango and papaya season in Kenya. I got Edward to buy me some mangos at the market. If he bargains, he`ll get a decent deal. If they see my white skin, they`ll double the price. There’s a two year old hybrid mango tree in the garden, whose fruit is almost mature. It`s pretty tempting to pick it!

As we prepare to go back to Zambia for another short term (May 8 to June 25) our neighbour Hans tells me, “We’ve sent millions down to Africa. And what has it done?” It’s a comment we hear from many others too. The prevalent opinion is that the developed world keeps pumping money into Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and there is no improvement. I decided to do some checking to see if that is true or not.

In 2000 the United Nations set a Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to reach by 2015, with eight targets – including reducing extreme poverty and hunger by half, gender equality in schools, primary school completion, clean water, and environmental sustainability. It was a monumental moment, as never before have so many nations – both developing and developed – stood together in solidarity to work hard towards these goals. The developed world promised money and support. A lot of money. Did it help?

Yes. To even my surprise, apparently it did. Despite so many reports of corruption (which is very real), despite the reports of all that should yet be done, progress has been made. Check out these two World Bank and UN reports. The first one is for Sub Saharan Africa. The second one is for Zambia, which interests me particularly.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/334934-1327948020811/8401693-1327957211156/8402494-1334239337250/GMR-2012-SSA-Brief.pdf

UN Report for Zambia meeting MDG

http://www.undp.org.zm/joomla/attachments/005_Zambia%20MDGs%20Progress%20Report%20Zambia%202008.pdf

There’s a long ways to go yet though. Sobering to me is that the rural areas of Zambia have much higher rates of extreme poverty than the urban – 67% in 2006 (but down from 81% in 1991) compared to 20% in urban areas. 51 Percent of the population of Zambia still doesn’t meet the minimum level of dietary energy consumption – which means they don’t get enough to eat. That’s where we’ve been trying to help as we consult with small scale farmers.

Zambia has more water and fertile soil than many other countries. We’ve been there long enough to see that small scale farmers can produce enough food for their families and more if they follow conservation farming (CF) practices, which don’t use a lot of external inputs. Many in Zambia – both NGOs and government agencies are working hard to promote CF among small farmers, and we’ve seen it being practised more and more. But not nearly enough.

Boet Pretorius spends his time travelling over southern Africa to teach CF principles as part of Foundations for Farming. Robert and I took his five day course two years ago. Boet summed things up nicely in a discussion he had with the Tanzanian Finance Minister some time ago. The Minister asked him what his success rate was with his work.

“Between two and five percent,” Boet answered.

“Then why do you do it,” the Minister asked him.

“Because of the two to five percent.”

It’s a sobering thought, such a small success rate. But it often seems to be reality, even for us. Sometimes we’re discouraged, wondering why we are there. Then we see someone prospering because of something we helped them with, and it is enough to keep going again. Because it’s more than just the two to five percent – it’s everyone they influence and teach.
Improvement is slow, but there is improvement. That’s encouraging.

What is easier, to keep a family business going for 60 years or to stay married to the same person for 65? Last Sunday I attended two anniversaries. My in-laws, Heinrich and Emmi Stamm were married for 65 years on April 17th, and the Brütsch family in Ramsen, Schaffhausen held a two day party and open house to celebrate 60 years of their custom farming operation. There was a lot of reminiscing done at these two events. How much has changed, both in individual lives, our social environment and agriculture in these 60 or 65 years!

1947, the year my in-laws were married, was one of the driest years on record. They’d just moved onto a newly built farm site, there was a pile of debts and in time seven children would join them. There was no tractor yet, no chemicals, no combine harvester. Much of the work was done laboriously by hand, in a time when women still wore long skirts to the field. There were no throw-away pampers, no automatic washing machines. We talk of the good old times, but Grandma thinks they weren’t always just good. She talks a lot of the hard work, but also of the great times they had as a family.

Hans Brütsch, now 82, bought a gas powered motor to irrigate his field in 1952. He found it paid better though to use it to pump out water holes for builders, and cellars that flooded every year at the time. Cellars rarely flood anymore. The creek was corrected long ago so it would stay within its banks. With that first money he financed the first combine harvester in Switzerland and went custom combining. The director of the agriculture college was quoted as saying that this machine might be okay for canola and barley, but it would never work for bread or seed grains. The family has been custom combining ever since. Hans’s son Werner now owns the business and runs three combines – two Claas Lexions and a New Holland hillside machine. Besides the combines they run seeding and cultivating equipment, a sugar beet harvester, round balers that wrap for silage, and even a rock picker. That one surprised me – but Werner assured me there are a lot of rocks in their area and the picker makes them good money.

I see my in-laws walking slowly through the village hand in hand and know life wasn’t always an easy road for them to walk. There were serious accidents, financial setbacks, and family difficulties like everywhere else. Last Sunday we celebrated the fact that they are still together, love each other and the wonderful family they raised.

Hans Brütsch showed me that first pump, standing right across from the three modern shiny combines. It was a long road between the two machines too. There were hard times, with lots of work and disappointments that he told me about. Money and opportunities lost. On Sunday he was just very grateful for all that he and his family had been able to accomplish and for everyone that came to celebrate with them.

Neither is easy – whether to be married 65 years or maintain a family business for 60. Many fail trying. Families like these two are an inspiration to the rest of us to keep working hard at it.