Organic Farms Provide Local Produce to Gorongosa National Park Restaurant

Farmers from the Vinho Organic Agriculture Association have begun to provide the restaurant at Chitengo Camp in Gorongosa National Park with fresh, locally grown, organic produce, including cabbage, lettuce, corn, and tomatoes.

It is a win-win arrangement. The farmers of Vinho have a large, new market from which to earn a good living, the restaurant staff saves on transport costs, and staff and visitors at Chitengo Camp enjoy healthier food.

The arrangement between the Vinho farmers and Chitengo’s restaurant grew out of local initiatives to improve farming techniques, an initiative which is being supported by the Gorongosa Restoration Project’s human development programs. Once such initiative is the organic market farm run by twelve women farmers in Vinho, which recently received a microfinancing loan from the Gorongosa Restoration Project to purchase and install a pump, water storage tank, and drip irrigation system.

The system was installed in late June and is already helping the women to increase their production of vegetables that they can sell to the Chitengo Restaurant and elsewhere.

Twelve women from the community of Vinho (District of Nhamatanda) started the ambitious new market farm. The women are working together to grow a variety of vegetables and herbs that they sell to the restaurant at the Chitengo Camp, including tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, beans, squash, watermelon, carrots, peppers, and coriander.

They also plan to grow a variety of plants, including herbs and garlic, that will help to deter pests as part of an integrated pest management program.

The Chitengo restaurant now has access to higher quality, locally-grown produce – ideally picked and served on the same day – and the women will earn money to support their families and improve their community. They will also have a farm with improved soils thanks to the organic farming techniques they are implementing.

Traditional farming methods in the communities surrounding Gorongosa National Park typically exhausted the soils, meaning that any machamba or garden plot could be farmed for only a few years before it had to lie fallow for many years. Farmers looked for the growth of certain weed plants to indicate when the machamba’s soil fertility had been exhausted; when these plants appeared, the machamba had to be left fallow until farmer’s grandson was in charge – often for decades.

Today, because of community boundaries and the growing population, the supply of land available for farming is more limited than ever before and must be conserved. Organic farming is key to this conservation.

The Human Development Department of the Gorongosa Restoration Project (GRP) is supporting the women’s market farm effort by providing advice regarding planting and pest control techniques that improve farm productivity and sustainability, as well as assistance with installing a drip irrigation system complete with a pump.

We will also help in taking the produce to market – in this case, Chitengo Camp. Other farming groups face big difficulties getting their produce to market, and often end up selling to a “middle man” who takes it to market for them. But too often these intermediaries receive most of the profits from the sale of the produce, and the farmers get relatively little.

Nearby at the new Vinho school (built by the GRP), the students are also engaged in creating and caring for an organic garden. The Mozambican Ministry of Education encourages every school to have a farm, and we are building on this national program, seizing the opportunity to teach organic farming techniques through the schools in communities around the Park. Currently, we are working to teach and implement organic farming techniques for the Vinho school garden, including designing a gravity irrigation system from the school’s pump. The teachers are very happy to be learning these new techniques.

The involvement of GRP staff in these projects is in response to an already strong community-based effort to promote more sustainable agricultural practices.

This past year, 38 Vinho community members (including the twelve women working on the market farm) came together to establish the Vinho Organic Farming Association, which sought and received registration and certification from the Mozambican government.

Gorongosa hopes to assist the Association in planning field days so that these farmers can demonstrate the organic farming techniques they are using to other farmers from Vinho and neighboring communities and can explain how these techniques are improving their farm’s output and sustainability. The goal of the GRP initiative is to build upon existing community initiatives like this one and to help rectify problems and keep the farmers’ efforts going in a positive direction.

Valere Tjolle