Page 73 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 1

ISSUE ONE | JULY/AUG
HEAL THE LAND section of bush which most likely the rivers, seas, oceans and the air.
If my people who are called by my was virgin land and this gave you During the Second World War,
name will humble themselves and a brand new fertile farm, while the Africans in Kenya were also
pray and seek my face and turn land you had been working rested. allowed to start growing cash
from their wicked ways, then I will Crops were grown mostly in small crops at a small scale, besides the
hear from heaven, and will forgive farms. crops they grew for subsistence.
their sin and heal their land. (2 This was because of the increase
CHRONICLES 7:14. ) Africa was a pioneer in the in demand for these crops as
development of agriculture a result of the war. They also
The Genesis story of the bible is with the first farms established started using modern farming
such a beautiful show of the mind millennia before the birth of methods including fertilizers on
of God towards man and the ease Christ Jesus. A wide variety of their farms. This further spread
at which He God intended man to crops were grown across the the degradation of soils into the
relate with his environment. He continent from the Sahel, West African reserves. Furthermore
God planted the garden and only Africa, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the some of them used the chemical
gave man the job to Tend and Zambezi River, Congo river basin fertilizers on the food crops they
Keep the garden and by extension, Uganda and Egypt. In places raffia, grew as the demand to supply
the earth. oil palm, peas, groundnuts, kola emerging markets in the towns
Later, when man succumbed to nuts, sorghum, bananas, pearl that were growing rapidly all over
the wiles of the devil, God put a millet, gourds melons beans yams the country increased. This was
curse on the ground and only in and African rice were all grown the beginning of what has become
toil was he to eat from it. Man thousands of years BC. the modern agricultural system
was banished from the garden in Kenya. It is basically based on
God had planted and sent out When European influence growing of food crops, industrial
to till the ground from which he arrived with colonization, there crops and horticultural crops
had been taken. This ground was was introduction of large scale using chemical fertilizers and
to bring forth both thistles and farming. The colonial masters herbicides.
thorns, and so, in order to get food grabbed large tracts of land and When chemical fertilizers are used
he had to battle these first. He used forced labour from the locals consistently on the land, more
was to eat from the sweat of his to grow different types of crops fertiliser is needed in subsequent
labour. We can say that the route for commercial purposes. This years as the soil is acidified and
to soil degradation started here had a great effect on the land and stripped of all its nutrients.
as man was bound to find ways soils on the continent. First the Eventually it gets to a point where
of reducing the sweat he had to large scale farming led to clearing nothing can grow, unless you
expend in order to get food from of vast areas of bush and forest. apply more and more fertiliser
the ground. This started the environmental each year. This means that the
degradation that continues today plants get their nutrients from the
Over the years, as the population with rainfall patterns changing and chemicals. In addition to this, it is
all over the world increased, there soil erosion increasing. Plantation old fashioned to weed in modern
was a concurrent demand for food farming introduced by the colonial agriculture. Chemical herbicides
and introduction of new farming government brought about soil and also chemical pesticides
techniques. Looking back to the degradation. This is because it complete the picture. The food
African traditional agricultural was mostly mono-cropping that produced then ends up with high
practices, we need no research was done. The main crops grown chemical residues. These cause
to know that it was a sustainable were maize, coffee, tea, sisal wheat diseases like cancer to spread.
way of food production that and fodder crops like hay. Mono-
was used to produce food and cropping without crop rotation In order to grow healthy organic
over hundreds of years. There degrades the soil by stripping it foods, a healing of the mind,
were lower populations and vast of the nutrients that the particular spirit and of the land needs to
spaces in which to grow food and crop requires. In most cases, take place. We must not only
keep livestock. Food was grown in rotation was not done because humble ourselves and pray but
the more fertile areas and animals of the demand for the crops in also turn from the wicked ways of
were grazed in the areas where Europe where they were being modern agriculture and embrace
grass was predominant. If you exported. The solution to this was sustainable practices of Farming
farmed an area for a period of time to start using chemical fertilizers God’s Way in order to grow
and felt the nutrients in the soil to keep the land productive year healthy food for the people of this
were depleted, all you had to do after year. This led to acidification continent. In the next article we
in many places was to clear out a of the soils in addition to polluting shall see how to do this.

WWW.MSINGIAFRIKAMAGAZINE.COM 73