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Reversing Malnutrition in Refugee Camps

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Sarah Fretwell visits a refugee camp in Northern Uganda and finds out how permaculture is helping refugees to grow food in the most difficult of circumstances.

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At the end of a long red dirt road in Northern Uganda, I get an unexpected glimpse of our planet’s food future as the climate changes. Notoriously difficult for journalists to access, I am fortunate to arrive at Palabek refugee settlement with the field staff of African Women Rising’s (AWR) Permagarden Program. I am about to learn how this innovative approach is disrupting the broken aid system by adapting food production to the realities of climate change. Human Rights Watch notes, “The world currently has 25.4 million refugees who have fled because of war, violence, and persecution. Another 40 million were forced to flee their homes but still live in their country.” Those numbers grow by the day. Prospective refugees fleeing violence assume there is a better life away from the chaos. No one envisions living in a mud hut, with no job, and struggling to secure enough food to survive. But that is what over one million South Sudanese refugees have found in Uganda.

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The first hurdle in starting life over in a new country (after overcoming the trauma of losing your established life and loved ones) is that you arrive with only the clothes on your back. You receive a 30x30m (98x98ft) plot of land (a bit less than a quarter-acre), a white tarp with the blue logo of UNHCR, four sticks to use as tent poles, a 20-liter (4.4 gallon) jerry can for water, a food ration card, and a cooking pot. The food rations from the World Food Program (maize, beans, oil, sugar, and salt, measured down to the ounce) are supposed to last one month, but for many, they last only three weeks, with meals once a day. Few displaced people here have additional resources to buy more food. In 2014, this remote corner of Uganda was just locals. Unless stated otherwise, all photos © Sarah Fretwell. Then Palabek Settlement opened, and the refugee camp quickly overwhelmed the existing villages. Since AWR was working in the area before the refugees arrived, they are presently one of the few Ugandan nonprofits working alongside major international aid players like Oxfam, the International Red Cross, and the International Rescue Committee.

 

The success of the AWR permagarden program is so profound that even the United Nations is taking notice. Their first training was with 20 refugees. Now their program successfully serves over 6,000.

 

Permagarden Program
The African Women Rising’s field team directs us to Zone 5B, Block 11, where their program is operating. Palabek is the most strikingly idyllic setting for a refugee settlement I have ever visited: green trees, deep red clay dirt, and, since it is the end of the rainy season, abundant signs of greenery (though in the dry season, I’m told it can be a dust bowl). When we visit another block inside the camp, it seems barren compared to the AWR area. Their innovative permagarden program is changing lives and impacting futures.

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The brainchild of AWR’s co-founder and technical advisor, Thomas Cole, the permagarden approach is a basic yet powerful tool that builds on the permaculture design framework, integrating agroecological principles and bio-intensive techniques. Tom and AWR’s team are leading a food revolution for the developing world based on the Permagarden and Resilience Design Toolkits, which Tom helped create with the USAID-funded TOPS program. In the face of climate change and ongoing inequality worldwide, the success of AWR’s permagarden program has tremendous implications for humanity.

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During the training, AWR’s agricultural staff walk through each family’s plot with the group, on a “landscape resource walk” so everyone can see they have a great variety of useful and free waste resources around them – charcoal dust, dried manure, wood ash, fallen leaves, and other nutrients for the soil in the rubbish pits and the bush. Participants then “walk the water,” coming to understand the flow of rainwater across their land as they learn vital techniques to slow, spread, and sink the water into the soil for their benefit. This is a critical factor in the success of the gardens, since during the dry season, windstorms and the fierce sun can create dust-bowl conditions. The permagarden technique creates a living sponge out of the soil during the rainy season so plants can continue to produce during increasingly frequent dry spells and stabilize food production during droughts.

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Thomas tells me, “Before any digging begins, each refugee sketches out a map of their plot, layering in practical earthworks and other techniques designed to make the land a living sponge to soak water and nutrients during the rainy season.” Then, using a simple wooden A-frame for guidance, water-harvesting swales and berms are dug on contour at crucial areas of the land. Vegetable beds are marked and then double-dug 50–60 cm (20–24 in) deep, a process which allows many of the wastes (aka resources) identified earlier to be incorporated deep into the soil to feed the microorganisms, which will then feed their crops.

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Water-harvesting earthworks are dug for all existing trees, and new spots are identified within their compound where additional plantings could provide the most benefit. In this way, productive functions are stacked even within a 30×30m plot.

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As we walk around visiting gardens in Palabek, we meet Lakot Linda, a single grandmother in her 60s who is head of the household for her four grandchildren. Their mother died, and they have not located their father since fleeing South Sudan. Once she learned the skills to build the garden and the confidence to move forward, they had cowpea greens within a few weeks and other crops shortly after that. Proud that she can now provide for the children, she says, “If I die tomorrow, at least I left them a garden they can eat from.”

Combined with participants’ local knowledge of the land and plants, their Permagardens are bursting with nourishment. Together, they are creating an agriculture system designed to help the environment regenerate and get stronger as it matures, and to help provide harvests deep into the dry season when food becomes even more scarce. Compared to most food security programs in refugee settings, based on handouts and food rations, this permaculture-based approach is radical in its simplicity and effectiveness.

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Tom notes, “Many [permagardeners] have even begun preserving greens and other foods to be eaten well into the dry season, when water becomes scarce and hunger more prevalent in the camp.” One of the keys to success in the program is that AWR has worked hard to source a variety of local seeds and crops (chosen for local growing conditions, nutrition, and happiness) that many refugees already have experience growing, eating, and preserving. “More than the imported cabbage, onion, and tomato seeds often given out in most kitchen garden programs, AWR works hard to find locally adapted and culturally relevant varieties that can be grown in the permagarden and around the compound: amaranth, okra, cowpea, pigeon pea, spider plant, eggplant, pumpkin, papaya, passionfruit, tomato, spinach, sukumawiki, Jew’s mallow, and chili pepper. The emphasis is on dietary diversity, micronutrients, and crops that can be harvested long after the rains have ended,” notes Thomas.

 

Reversing Malnutrition
Next, we meet Yaka Lucia. As the head of the household with three children and a newborn, she somehow had the time to start a permagarden. Before she planted her garden, when she only had the food rations, her breast milk dried up, and she was unable to feed her baby. With her garden, she can feed her children for the entire month, until the next round of World Food Program rations is given. Once she started eating the greens from her garden, her breast milk returned.

Since there is an increase in malnutrition and hunger during the dry season, the program also emphasizes how to design and plan for “dry season hunger” by focusing on specific crops that can be stored or preserved, such as pumpkin (fruit is stored, and leaves dried), hard squash, and drying moringa leaves. Also, farmers are taught to note the crops that can grow and be harvested during these times, such as okra, cowpea, pigeon pea, and papaya.

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The result is that with more year-round balanced diets, not only are participants fed, they and their families are better nourished. Some farmers are so successful that they are able to sell veggies and start other businesses. Oyoo Agusti is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the program. His garden is thriving; we discover he has opened two other businesses, bought a goat, and has managed to increase his income approximately 150% – all based on multiple harvests from his permagarden.

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The farmers are put in groups to work, mentor, and assist each other. Some also participate in microfinance groups that help pool money to help farmers with investing and saving money. One day in the not-so-distant future, a refugee farmer from this remote camp in Northern Uganda may be one of the few “experts” in the world who has honed the skills of “permagardening.” With every day that climate change goes unchecked, those of us in industrialized countries are one day closer to the same instability and food scarcity. Whether we live in a city or a refugee settlement, this issue will matter to all of us.

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Yucca Lucia could be the one who takes you on a resource walk, instructs you how to double-dig a vegetable bed, set up the half-moon water catchment, and harvest the seeds that you and your family need to survive, just as she did once upon a time. You may want to support these budding experts now.

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