In the spirit of the Arbour Day celebrations recently the news interviewed Martin Dower. He is an accredited trainer for a programme called Farming God’s Way.
The news met Dower on the job at Riverstone Lodge in Muldersdrift were he is training a group of staff members in growing and maintaining a vegetable garden.
The difference between planting just any vegetable garden and doing it God’s way is by using organic and environmentally friendly methods, explains Dower.
“Our methods include little or no soil disturbance, no destruction or incorporation of surface organic residues and a significant biodiversity of species. In keeping with this we model our agricultural practices through no ploughing, total mulch cover and practicing rotation,” he explains.
He says they are empowering people if they train them to plant in such a way.
“We train and provide them with tools to farm kindly toward nature to benefit from its kindness in turn.”
At the Riverstone Lodge garden a spirit of enthusiasm is tangible as staff members prepare the soil and plant organic vegetables.
“Various parties will benefit from the garden at Riverstone,” explains Dower.
70 per cent of the vegetables will go onto the menu at the lodge, 20 per cent will go to staff and 10 per cent will be donated to Lesego Primary School close to the lodge.
The school receives their donation on condition that they work to keep the area surrounding the lodge and school litter-free.
The need for a project such as this, according to Dower, stems from the growing poverty and lack of food security in Africa.
“Africa is the most poverty stricken of all the world’s continents, yet we have approximately 750 million subsistence farmers who are living undernourished and degraded lives as their current crop yields cannot even provide for their families’ requirements,” he says.
“We aim to change that sad reality and give providers the assurance that they can feed their families. Although it is done on a small scale at Riverstone Lodge, valuable skills are being learned that can be paid forward in future,” he concludes.
For more information or to donate toward training, visit https://www.farming-gods-way.org/.
