We teach Conservation Agriculture and Sustainability in Zimbabwe and around the Planet
STARVING EARTH - STARVING PEOPLE
The poorest in the world are often hungry, have much less access to education, regularly have no light at night, and suffer from much poorer health.
84% of the world’s 608 million farms are smallholdings; that is, farms less than two hectares in size. Tragically, many small scale farmers do not even produce enough food for themselves. They are among the poorest people in the world.
Various factors add more pressure to small scale farmers like the loss of arable land, the world’s growing population and land distribution issues. In the past 40 years more than 30% of the world’s arable land has been lost due to soil erosion, climate change, pollution, continual ploughing and heavy fertilization
Climate-smart Conservation Agriculture enables farmers to sustain themselves on a very small piece of land, heal the soil and nourish it for future generations.
“If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.”
(Isaiah 58:10-11)
Research and farming institutions from Brazil, the Netherlands and Zimbabwe win FAO Awards
WHO WE ARE
Foundations for Farming (FfF) is a registered non-profit organization based in Zimbabwe.
FfF’s method of conservation agriculture and message of hope applies the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to faith, family and finance through farming.
The simple, transformative power of faithful stewardship of people, places and profits heals our planet. FfF was founded in Zimbabwe by Brian Oldreive in 1982. FfF has become a ministry with 50 fulltime employees and over 1,000 volunteers spread throughout the world. FfF is based at a model 15 Ha farm on the outskirts of Harare. The centre has accommodation and a training centre for crop trials, training and research. Before joining FfF, most team members were farmers, some of them for decades.
FfF has a network of international trainers, stations and representatives all over the world including Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Eswatini, Ghana, India, Malawi, Namibia, The Netherlands, Panama, Rwanda, South Africa, UK, USA and Zambia.
WHAT WE DO
FfF specializes in training small-scale farmers to adopt simple, manageable, applicable, long-lasting (SMALL) soil conservation practices that result in high yields. Small field, more yield.
Through FfF, farmers learn the minimal requirements to become self-sufficient and generate surplus from their land. With our best practices farmers escape poverty, have healthy diets, improve the environment and generate enough income to build a better future for themselves and their families. FfF’s training is based on a holistic, biblical, character-based approach that relies on personal transformation to achieve lasting behaviour modification and results. Farmers learn to return to a circular economy as faithful stewards of nature that unlocks productivity, sustainability and profitability.
FfF’s mantra is: On Time, At standard, Without waste and With joy. If you apply these principles to any business, invariably in the end you will make a profit. Profit is the fruit of faithfulness.
OUR IMPACT
We have directly trained more than 30’000 farmers and instructors. Many of our former trainees are passionate advocates for our methods in their own communities. In this way Foundations for Farming principles have been taught to more than 3 million farmers around the world.
On average farmers mentored by us get a yield of 8 T/Ha, compared to the national (Zimbabwe) average of 0.4 T/Ha for small-scale farmers.
Conventional farming methods see yields decline and costs rise. We are the first step in transforming farms to apply conservation agriculture, agroforestry, composting and more. Although we focus on small-holdings, the Foundations for Farming principles have been applied from the smallest garden to the largest commercial farm. The Founder of Foundations for Farming, Brian Oldreive, farmed 3,500 Ha using this system and set a national maize yield record that stood for 20-years in Zimbabwe. Some of the many benefits are less soil erosion, efficient water management, improved bio-density and nutrition of the food and increased biodiversity. Climate smart farming reduces the impact of droughts and makes plants stronger to withstand pests and diseases.
