Organic food is best: for our health, our soil, our water, our wildlife, and our livelihoods. But…
Is it organic?
A common misconception among visitors and even some residents of Zanzibar is to assume that fresh produce sold in the markets is all grown organically. Some is, but the sad reality is that modern agricultural fertilisers and pesticides are in widespread use throughout Zanzibar.
Tomato & watermelon cultivation use the most chemicals!
For food safety, wash all fruits and vegetables thoroughly!
Danger to health
Alarmingly, agricultural chemicals used here are seldom designed for our tropical climate that combines extreme temperature, humidity and rainfall.
Worse, information about their ‘safe’ or recommended use and storage is not always available in Swahili, nor do many farmers have access to the refrigerated or dry storage and PPE required to use chemicals safely.
On the thousands of tiny remote farms around the isles, effective training and monitoring of chemical usage is extremely challenging to implement: chemicals are often used at much higher concentrations than intended.
Thus, residue may remain at dangerous levels on harvested produce, and rains wash excess chemicals into the soil, groundwater, wells, and ultimately the water we drink!
Designed to kill
Artificial pesticides are indiscriminate killers, devastating to wild ecosystems, soil and water. Toxic chemicals eradicate countless valuable species alongside the few targeted pests.
Along with pest insects, we lose helpful animals: predators that feed on those pests, pollinators that fertilise flowers to produce the fruit harvest, and detritivores that break down fallen leaves into compost and recycle essential nutrients for roots to absorb.
As well as weeds, we lose wildflowers that pollinator populations feed on the rest of the year when the crops aren’t in flower, we lose ground cover plants that shade and protect the soil and reduce evaporation and erosion, and nitrogen fixing leguminous plants that replenish soil fertility.
What is organic food?
Organic food is grown without the use of harmful artificial chemical pesticides and fertilisers. Instead, pests are controlled with integrated pest mangement techniques and naturally derivied plant products, and soil is enriched with compost made naturally from decomposed organic waste To learn more about these techniques visit PPIZ.
Eat Local!
Supporting local farmers keeps food miles low and helps local communities thrive – and our food arrives fresh from the farm along with its flavour!
SISI NI KILIMOHAI!
We are organic!
The rallying cry of the Zanzibar organic movement!
Regenerating organic agroforestry
Restore traditional homegardens
We have solutions. Traditional subsistence homegardens – ancient agroforestry that has fed Zanzibar for millennia – mimics a wild ecological system by growing several food plants of different kinds together surrounding the houses where people live. Homegardens are low maintenance, and largely self-manage. Growing many different crops simultaneously keeps production high and provides year-round food and income. Lush, multi-level plant structure provides habitat for helpful predators and pollinators. Natural mulching from fallen leaves along with natural rotation keeps fertility high, recycles nutrients and minimises evaporation and erosion. Prunings, peelings and weedings are recycled into the system, to make compost, or feed goats and chickens, which also control pests and contribute natural soil fertilisers along with eggs and meat. The trees keep the climate cool and provide timber and thatch for the homes built in their shade.
Sadly, these practices are at risk: expanding tourism is driving people from coastal communities inland, and urban sprawl encroaches on fertile agricultural regions. Trees are cut, and chemicals deployed in pursuit of higher short-term yields and cash crops. But any productivity benefits are short-lived as the thin soils of the coral rag soon dry out and blow away without the protection of the plants and recycling of the animals and microbes. Yields decline year after year; once-fertile farms turn to dust.
People need homes but they need food too. It is imperative we don’t lose our ability to grow food and feed people in our haste to house them.
The tide is turning
A grassroots network is emerging of organic and agroecological enterprises to form the Zanzibar Organic Initiative (ZOI), with pioneers such as our own Dr Mwatima Juma of Msonge Organic Family Farm championing the cause. The movement goes all they way up to the President of Zanzibar himself who sounded the call for us all – not forgetting those in tourism – to support Zanzibar’s organic farmers.
Without reinventing the wheel, we can strengthen organic agriculture, restoring traditional practices in synergy with complementary ideas from contemporary permaculture and agroecological practice, to regenerate productive and wildlife-rich organic agroforests landscape with space for people, food, and wildlife to coexist.
Learn More:
Eat organic!
- MSONGE ORGANIC FAMILY FARM offers weekly farm-to-table lunches on Sundays and Regular pakacha deliveries (organic food basket).
Grow organic!
- PRACTICAL PERMACULTURE INSTIUTE, ZANZIBAR (PPIZ) offers training courses in English and Kiswahili in organic agroecology, integrated pest management, composting, permaculture and more.
- OUR GREEN COMPANY offers consultancy and training in ecological gardening and organic farming techniques.
Choose sustainable food: from the sea
In the past, it was the practice of our elders to stop
fishing for some time of the year to give the fish populations time to recover. Now this is not possible anymore, because there are too many untrained fishermen, trying to catch as much as possible and not thinking about tomorrow.
Dimani 2001
Which fish to eat?
Zanzibar’s coastal fishing communities depend on the wild ocean fish species for their livelihoods. But with ever more boats and nets fishing the same finite stocks, resources are over-exploited with a looming threat of imminent fisheries collapse.
Consumers must therefore take responsibility for choosing carefully.
Chumbe Island Coral Park has developed this guide to choosing sustainable fish. This already-excellent guide will shortly be updated, so check back again soon!