Guiding Principles

Using but Protecting Nature

Biodynamic agriculture is the oldest consciously organic approach to farming and gardening, and is one of the most sustainable in existence. It is founded on a holistic understanding of nature and the human being. This form of agriculture is particularly suited to the fragile economic, environmental, and social conditions prevailing within Zimbabwe.

The very tenets of organic farming ensure the sustainability of KAITE’s unique blend of socially responsible entrepreneurship, while conservation farming practices provide partner farmers the opportunity to participate in carbon trading. Composting and the use of traditional plants in pesticide control eliminate harmful agrochemicals, while crop rotation with legumes as nitrogen fixers also improves soil fertility. Only small-scale irrigation systems with man-powered pumps are used. Moreover, the mobile distillation unit’s boiler can be run on indigenous Jatropha oil, produced in a sustainable way, resulting in zero carbon emissions. In addition, all herbs and spices are processed using mobile solar dryers, that is, only with renewable energy resources. Thus, KAITE’s cooperation with its partner farmers will contribute ultimately towards the reversal of land degradation in those areas where biodynamic agriculture is practised.

Weaning farmers off unsustainable reliance upon expensive chemical pesticides and fertilizers makes sense, given the erratic supply and exorbitant price of conventional agricultural inputs, as well as the damage to the soil that they and their applied methods cause, such as burning straw. Organic farming has the potential to allow farmers to shift part of their income towards educating their children, better health care, and a better quality of life.

The principles of organic farming are not restricted to the crops that partner farmers are commissioned to grow: they build the foundation for an increase in productivity of all crops that Zimbabwean producers need to meet their needs and most importantly, those of their extended family.