Transcriber: Dương Phạm Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
Just imagine if your family doctor told you that your children
have been selected for a mental stunting program.
They are to be prescribed a medication that limits their growth to such a degree
that the complex world of adult mental development
was going to be dramatically reduced for them,
and they would never reach their fullest mental capacities
at any stage for the rest of their life.
The program only lasts for the first five years of the life, and it's compulsory.
You can see the drug advert now.
“Don’t want your kids to outshine you, try and starve them all.
A new infant formula that will destroy generations of kids
without the messy business of mass graves.”
Such a prescription is unfortunately all too real for many people,
albeit this is a fictional rendition in this dramatic sense,
I’m simply portraying the very real and stark reality
many families in countries like Uganda are facing
due to some basic flaws in our world order.
Malnutrition threatens to destroy a generation of children in Uganda.
More than one third of all young children, 2.4 million, are stunted.
The damage caused by stunting is irreversible.
Between 2013 and 2015,
it’s estimated that more than 500,000 young Ugandan children died.
Of these deaths, nearly half were associated with undernutrition.
Undernutrition is responsible
for 40% of the deaths of children under the age of five.
The combined effects of malnutrition on health care costs and education
based on 2009 data
is the equivalent of a staggering 5.6% of the nation’s GDP.
That’s 899 million dollars.
I can think of no greater crime than to let starve millions of infants and youth,
and yet it is happening all around us
in many countries all over the world today.
After thousands of hours of immersive experience
in the grassroots development work in Uganda,
I have come to understand
that we can only truly tackle the big problems humanity faces
by understanding the all-too-often overlooked elements of our life on Earth
which bind us to the soils of it.
So many of our issues do ultimately relate to our soils after all,
and there are plenty of solutions to these critical problems.
So why are they still persisting,
and when are we going to overcome these terrible problems?
I was given the chance in 2014
to put my ideas of transforming child care facilities
to improve the living conditions
through the use of home food production models
and various other techniques related to water, cooking and land management.
Most orphanages are dependent on donors for just about everything
to care for their kids,
and very few have robust home gardens
where the children can learn a practical life skill
and increase their nutrient uptake at the same time.
With just $15,000, we transformed this one facility,
and the results were spectacular.
Six months after completion, we were told by the orphanage
that they were saving $1000 US per month on average.
With less sickness and medical costs,
next to nothing for food bills, huge water savings,
the facility was finally able to keep up with their staff salaries.
But beyond this, I witnessed several children who had emotional trauma -
they had positive turnarounds and responses to the gardens.
My return visit to see the once-barren children’s center a full year later
was like walking through the Garden of Eden,
and the kids couldn’t wait to show me
how they were continuing to cultivate
their very own food forests and permaculture raised bed gardens.
This led me to continue to train over 28 such children’s homes
and develop several curriculums
pertinent to the development of robust community gardens
in the East African context,
and ultimately became the inspiration for my life’s work,
which is now spawning new enterprises with vast potential
to reshape our world’s supply chains in the African context.
Through participating and managing dozens of such projects
using sustainable design science,
I have witnessed the success
that comes from getting out and actually doing the work.
So yes, we need more doers getting outside and taking action,
but we need to understand the solutions
are in the relationship we have with nature
and not a faith based or emotionally biased set of ideologies,
which have no bearing on the tangible results
that end the cycles of poverty.
Well-wishers and volunteers are no new thing to Africa.
Unless practical skills are transferred wholly
to the communities you’re working with,
the works to end these big problems will not be sustained,
for it is a cultural undertaking,
and it takes more than a few donations of goods and services
to shift the underlying behaviors that may ruin children’s futures.
Now, more than ever, we need to exemplify the saying “trade, not aid,”
and activate ethical businesses for rural populations
to bring themselves out of poverty.
Students need tangible and natural solutions
they can actually grasp with their own hands.
Religious and ideological theories and beliefs
can sometimes support people to do the hard work
that needs to be done,
but all too often they become the focus rather than the support mechanism,
and the real solutions are lost in the confusion
of the supernatural ideas
rather than remaining grounded on the natural processes
that actually work to restore dignity and health to humankind.
In my own small example,
I can tell you that I believe in angels,
but I do not rely on ethereal beliefs
to actually do any of the work that needs to be done
to reverse the pain too many people are waking up to every day
just because of where they are born.
I’m not a nutritionist, but I’m tackling malnutrition.
I’m not a botanist, but I’m reforesting ecologies
and manufacturing some of the world’s best superfoods and plant medicine
through dozens of herbal plants.
I'm a permaculture designer.
Permaculture design science,
which I practice to undertake all of my business models,
is about being able to work with all disciplines and all sciences
to bring them together and bridge the divides between them
to create truly multidisciplinary cultures
that bring about positive changes to people’s daily lives.
The breadth of sciences, data, skills and trades,
which permaculture design enables,
covers such an exhaustive list,
you could spend many, many years
to try to figure out what you want to do with it.
I only realized after 10 years of working with it
that I was tackling malnutrition
when I was reforesting all these damaged landscapes.
So I feel it’s helpful for students when teachers find ways
to simplify the whole spectrum of these initiatives
into profound and simple truths
that show how simple solutions can be,
and one of my favorite reductions
that inspires me is simply the word “shade.”
Most, if not all, sustainable work ultimately boils down to how much shade
we create in our societies.
Want to help the planet?
Get out there and make shade, specifically plant shade in this case.
We need shade, the living impression of contrast of trees and plants
and all their fruits on the surface of the earth.
It is the end result of a living ecology that is using sunlight
to create sustainable resources for the planet and humanity.
Creating more shade in our villages and countries
through the use of agroforestry
is just one of hundreds of solutions,
but it is the result of a dynamic approach to solving poverty.
I hope you will come to see how we can and will
create better living conditions wherever we create more shade.
Through my early experience of falling in love with Uganda since 2005,
I remembered the heartbreak I felt
when I read the 2008 National Environmental Management Report,
which stated that the country would lose all of its high canopy jungle by 2050.
The forest cover was around 24% in 1995,
and now it’s down to around 8%.
The country’s current malnutrition rate is around 30%,
and the poverty rate has again shot up due to COVID.
But this spike in poverty pales in comparison to the long lasting impact
that loss of forests ultimately creates
on smaller countries like Uganda,
where more and more people
will be depending on fewer resources over time.
It’s a real-life nightmare unfolding right before our eyes,
and it spells disaster for millions of people
if nothing is done about it.
We simply cannot allow the forests to die.
We must bring them back. But how?
We need a dynamic solution -
many ideas working in unison.
We need to place new value on forest ecologies
and integrate them into the rural household and farming landscapes.
This will not only reduce the need to forage into the remaining reserves
but also increase the number of species
and provide a tapestry of forests throughout the country
for animals and insect populations to regenerate.
Those being the basis of soil itself.
We need biologically sensitive forests, not just monocultures of exotic imports,
which further repel biodiversity from rebuilding in the country.
With the time left, I will share with you my top four ideas related to agroforestry,
which are actively focused on reducing human suffering.
These ideas are bringing profound, positive changes to the systemic problems
causing humanity to suffer in so many ways.
Number four: the living fence and what we call edge forests.
Any family with even a small parcel of land can plant trees and shrubs
around their plot of land relevant to their climate
to greatly increase their access to fuelwood, food, medicine
and increase the security and water retention of their crops.
The trees provide wind reduction, shade and in many cases
directly impact the soil fertility of the land around them.
They also produce timber for construction and firewood for the kitchen
as well as being a source of fodder for animals
and mulch for the gardens
and breeding grounds for local birds, some of which fly down from Europe.
By planting more trees,
we’re helping to repopulate all different types of species.
If you plant just 365 trees around your plot of land,
then within one to two years
you technically have a sustainable daily source of firewood.
But these living fences are dynamic.
We plant tall, medium and small species together.
They share space, they share light,
and they share soil nutrient
to produce miniature forests around our land
and home that also have fruits, medicine
and provide security by keeping ruminants from entering our crop and eating it.
A well-made living fence is an example of a design principle
to value the marginal, to create what’s known as an edge,
which captures and produces fertility in so many ways,
passively giving us what we need in our life.
Imagine if every rural family in Africa
planted food, fuel and medicinal trees around their compound
to supply themselves with firewood for cooking, supplements in their diets
and stave off lists of diseases.
This would be a huge step in the right direction for the continent.
Operation Wealth Creation, keep on going.
Number three: moringa and the herbal foods industry.
This is an approach to forestry
that recognizes the immense wealth of nature
and nature’s creations,
and how much they produce more than just the shade to sit under.
This is a side of forestry in which we not only see trees for timber,
but also for their medicinal, phytochemical and nutrient byproducts.
Uganda has one of the continent’s largest biological species pool
due to its many various climates and bioregional zones,
and all of these are under threat of extinction
if we don’t place new value on them.
As they are being stripped away from our very eyes
by commercial activities and survival needs,
we are witnessing the loss of the continent’s best nursery
for re-greening its vast territories.
Can we not use commercial enterprise to reverse these negative trends?
I personally say we absolutely must.
There are thousands of plants out there with immense immune strengthening
and body building powers just waiting for us to exploit them in the right way.
Through agroforestry, we have the opportunity
to place value on any part of a tree
if it has proven phytochemical nutrients which are useful
and aid humanity in its struggle for a healthy lifestyle.
One great example of a catalyst cash crop
to vivify the forest medicine industry is moringa.
This tree is the ultimate green supplement.
It tastes like grass,
but it packs a nutrient density and profile of proteins
and other phytocompounds
that massively support the human body’s regular functions.
With as little as two grams a day added to any food or drink,
moringa can greatly reduce the impact of malnourishment
for millions of people.
It’s a growing billion dollar industry projected to reach nine billion by 2025,
and the farmers themselves are the first to benefit from its production models.
It can make over 19 times the income
on a per-acre basis compared to subsistence crops,
and it’s one of the hardiest species known to science,
which intercrops with most other food and herbal plants.
The phytochemical industry is a growing billion- if not trillion-dollar industry,
with vast opportunities available at all stages of its supply chain.
Is it not possible that we may find millions of jobs in such an industry
for so many job seekers?
To me, these plants and these medicines are the new gold in Africa.
Second to last idea:
the culturally relevant management system - Priceless Farms.
The company we have created has shown us that we can,
with minimal to no interference in people's beliefs,
faiths or current cultures,
regrow forested landscapes
and provide dozens of jobs over small areas of land in rapid speed,
with no end in sight for the expansion of the model.
Priceless Farms is the corporate framework
we have been developing over the last six years
that anyone can work with
and utilize anywhere on the continent
to produce truly resilient cultures of agroforestry production.
Over time, these companies can generate excessive wealth from such farms.
Moringa alone has shown us that with a little value addition,
we can generate revenue many magnitudes higher than current crops per annum.
Our current management system cultivates over 40 such species
known within African traditional medicine.
This is a type of business management system
that goes right into the very edge of poverty-stricken countries
and begins reviving the most destitute communities
back to a culture of shade and foraging,
as opposed to the burning pains of indentureship and starvation.
When you see a community shift in this way,
you start to witness true miracles, not just the type you read about in books.
Last idea that I want to share with you,
which brings all of these technologies to bear
and all of these ideas to bear:
new economics - the means by which we can bring these models to scale,
to actually reverse the negative trends.
If we talk only about scale with respect to actuating
these hugely beneficial solutions to humanity’s issues
and we fail to remember speed, which is finance,
then we will run out of time on many of the issues
as they are so time sensitive.
Once a species goes extinct, we can’t bring it back,
and the damaged lands end up costing us far more
than those which are able to support their inhabitants.
To this point, we have developed a model of a financial tracking software
that will enable the purchasing of trees
on sustainable forest farms from anyone, anywhere in the world,
starting from a single dollar.
A software that works with the culturally sensitive management system
to provide startup capital,
to get forests planted and enable them to reach success
that actually makes money for everyone involved
as these trees produce commodities for markets around the world.
This software doubles as a tracking system
for companies’ assets and resources,
as well as a means to raise vast capital instantaneously
from an ever-growing forum of customers whose purchases lead to a better world,
and grow their wealth as well.
This, too, is entirely within our grasp,
and we hope to see the online version being released later this year,
and like all these examples,
this is a replicable, practical idea,
which can be recreated hundreds of times
for the benefit of the world populations and their ecologies
because it is based on sound, measurable production models
and can be tailored to any specific region or territory.
As the world continues to grow,
a new era of natural and clean ideas are springing to life
to give humanity options of survival.
It’s become clear to me
that without a dynamic approach to rapidly speed up our efforts,
to transform our current culture of production and resource use,
we are going to witness untold trouble in the future.
And yet, with the use of these types of ideas,
the prosperity that awaits us is indescribable.
We need to invest in our future
by rethinking the way we view the world.
I hope that like me, you can now see
that the shade of a single tree
holds the blueprint of a better world in its image
and clearly marks the spot
where the seeds of a new generation of clean, ethical resources
will surely fall.
Thank you for your time.