La Vita DiBella: Thursday-- Foundations for Farming

January 13, 2011

Once we traveled back to Harare, we went to Foundations for Farming. Brian, the head of the program, was SO inspiring. He had a crazy story. He was a very successful Tobacco farmer. Had his own farm and it was very profitable, but two things happened: 1. he lost his farm 2. he felt convicted to stop farming tobacco, a harmful product, and begin farming things that are helpful to people. He ended up starting foundations for farming and began to teach people things he learned from the US when they began to rotate crops during the great depression. He now teaches people all over the country to farm and compost effectively as well as grow herbs and make them into herbal remedies. He firmly believes that God has created everything we need on this earth and that we should be using it to the best of our abilities. He truly is living out his beliefs to the fullest!

He showed us the demonstration fields he uses to teach people how crops grow using different farming techniques. It was interesting to see the different ways people culturally plant and the height and size of each plant based on the technique within the same soil! He shows them how to feed the soil back the nutrients that are used when producing crops by adding specific nutrients into the compost which they lay ontop of the soil in addition to rotating the soil they plant the crops on. They also had a very impressive herb garden! Brian really believes that Zimbabweans have everything they need and he wants to show them and support them in making a profit and a living off of their crops as well as restoring the country's amazing richness.

I was so inspired! And now I'd love to grow my own herb garden. We learned SO much at Foundations for Farming in such a short amount of time!