Alan Imai has spent the last eleven years travelling the world teaching Natural Agriculture, an approach to farming and gardening that has helped indigenous people in Zambia, Nepal, Brazil and other countries break free of the economic burden of GMO seeds and fertilizers and develop sustainable farming based on local crops. His presentation to the United Nations about Natural Agriculture as a means for curbing world hunger and poverty won him a standing ovation. Director of the Shumei International Natural Agriculture programs, Alan will explain Natural Agriculture and tell the stories of its amazing successes on Monday, April 13th at the First Unitarian Church in Albuquerque.
A step closer to nature than the organic approach, Nature Agriculture is a simple and unique approach that recommends the cultivation of crops matched to the local environment, no fertilizers, no manure compost, no aggressive pest control, and no crop rotation. The results are safe and nutritious food, abundant yields, and no negative environmental impact. Created by the Japanese spiritual and social visionary Mokichi Okada in Japan in the 1940's, it has been successfully applied in every setting from the smallest backyard gardens up to large commercial farms, mostly in Japan, the USA, and Europe.
The centerpiece of Alan’s presentation will be his work in Zambia, which has a climate even drier than the American Southwest. At the invitation of the Mbabala Women Farmers Cooperative Union, in 2004, Alan travelled to Zambia where he found small scale farmers struggling with the high cost of fertilizers, pesticides, and hybrid seeds. It was a cycle of dependency that seemed unbreakable; the hybrid seeds required fertilizers and pesticides for growth, and the results were undependable. The periodic droughts meant famine and dependency on international aid to stave off famine.
Looking over the fields of ruined plants, Alan saw that a few fields were still green, and was told that these green plants were a local variety of maize (corn). Those grown from hybrid seeds had all died, and their roots had been eaten by ants. The heartier local variety had evolved over the years to withstand times of drought and resist insect damage.
Working with women farmers, Alan developed a program of Natural Agriculture workshops which included seed saving methods. He trained local community members as demonstration farmers so that other women would have access to local help centers where they would be able to learn.
The farmers themselves became the momentum for the program while Alan was not there, maintaining education through the demonstration farms and collecting tons of native seed varieties to share with other farmers. The success of Natural Agriculture in Zambia has inspired more and more farmers to turn to this method. And this approach has positively transformed the local culture, encouraging pride as Africans and confidence in their own abilities, the empowerment of women (“the key to rural development,” says Alan), and promoting education and health programs.