HEAR OUR STORY
Before
After
The broad acceptance and knowledge of permaculture as a study, practice and lifestyle came to Ghana officially through Ghana Permaculture Institute (GPI). It began in 2004 when GPI was a network (GPN) established to connect and work with rural dwellers, low-income and small-scale farmers in Ghana.
As the work progressed, GPI recognised the need to create a space where permaculture activities and practices could be implemented and showcase to students, farmers and other people in the community. The development of the demonstration and education centre has allowed individuals to gain practical knowledge and experience, going beyond the usual, in theoretical methods of teaching. This has proven effective in sharing essential permaculture practices to all, including the non-literate.
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In 2010 the demonstration site, located in Tanoboase, was founded by Dr Paul Yeboah.
The land was degenerated and the soil was very poor, but using his permaculture knowledge, Paul slowly improved the site, digging swales and reservoirs for water, improving the soil and planting a variety of medicinal and food crops.
Currently, the site serves as an avenue for young people to learn and adopt the lifestyle and practices of permaculture, in time, offering them the opportunity to become teachers and facilitators. Everyone is working to regenerate the land further and ensure the smooth running of the institute. From here we facilitate educational workshops and courses as well as hosting visitors.
Since 2004 the Institute has set up 50 community tree nurseries and continues to offer, advice and training to local farmers. Currently we are networking with over 8,000 farmers, and still counting.
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We share permaculture knowledge with schools, teaching children about health care, earth care and enterprise. Through our tree nursery project we donated trees to schools, community organisations, and farmers. In 2008 we donated over 35,000 trees to the United Nation Trees for Africa program and continue to give away thousands of trees, teaching people how to design food gardens and control the severe erosion and degeneration of the environment around their homes.
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From 2013-2018, we implemented sustainable development projects with the Southern Network for Environmental Development and BMZ (German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) through which we expanded our network to West African Countries such as Togo and Burkino Faso.
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The institute continues its promote the permaculture principles through the addition of more ecological projects such as alternative medicine research , mushroom spawn production moringa farming and honey processing.
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We are currently working with local farmers, women's groups and schools sharing practical permaculture education that is immediately implemented through land-based design and enterprise.
Problems and Solutions
Earth’s ecosystems are in crises. Many people are living in poverty and continue to use the land in such a way that it will continue to degrade natural ecosystems. This affects everyone. The powers that are governments and aid agencies are all looking for the big answers but really if we start at the back door and work out we can start to solve the problems. We all think “I would like to help but what can I do?”
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There is a solution and it’s really very simple. We can start to work on fixing the problems. How can we start? Most of the houses and villages we can see these days have no gardens, few trees and little shade. They are surrounded by hard, bare earth. But do you know in most cases we can grow plenty of fresh food around the homes and in community gardens? We can replant community managed forests to provide all our needs for building material and firewood, and still have plenty left over to leave to nature for the wildlife to enjoy. Healthy ecosystems are fundamental to successful sustainable business and to vibrant social communities.
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All we need to do is train people to develop the strategies for food security systems. All it takes is direct action on the ground using permaculture design and education. Permaculture is a well proven common sense design strategy for earth and people care.
Major Problems in Ghana
Savannah encroachment and desertification
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In the North of the country, the drier, Savannah region is creeping down into the greener forested areas. This is a result of logging, bush fires and also the broad scale drying out of the land from inappropriate agricultural practices such as mono-culture and over-plowing.
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Further north again, in the older Savannah areas, the land is getting even drier and increasingly irregular and unpredictable rainfall can cause crops to fail and people are at constant risk of famine. Overgrazing from livestock and high demand for firewood also means that tree cover is reducing. These things combine to create an increasingly barren landscape where the soil cannot hold water or nutrients – this is desertification.
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Permaculture teaches many effective, diverse and sophisticated natural techniques to reforest and reverse this degradation, that anyone can learn and carry out with local resources – and without the need for complex technology or expensive and harmful chemicals.
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Poverty and rural-urban migration
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People in the rural areas often lack access to services, opportunities, employment, resources and education. This causes strong pressures for people, especially the youth, to leave rural areas to look for better lives in the cities. However, this puts too much pressure on the cities and causes overcrowding and other problems, often leading to the growth of slums, unemployment and crime.
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By turning around spirals of environmental, social and economic degradation in rural areas we can revitalize them, making them abundant productive places that produce materials the cities need, and which also have their own vibrant local economies that add value to their own products. Importantly, they can be beautiful, clean, peaceful places where one can live a dignified life with all needs met.
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Lack of access to education for sustainability
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Knowledge is power. Lack of knowledge is lack of power.
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Lack of access to education is a big problem for people, particularly in practical sustainability that is directly relevant to their lives. Once they have the right knowledge and skills, anybody can turn their land into an abundant paradise full of food and materials, to meet all their own needs and still have a healthy surplus to sell. But how to get this knowledge? And who has time to study or money to pay for courses or books or traveling to training centers or colleges when they are struggling just to get their daily bread?
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Once we teach people permaculture, they start to share it with their neighbors. It is a practical system and a hands-on knowledge that even illiterate people can engage with, and once people see the positive results it delivers, then they want to try it too.
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We want to train more local permaculture teachers to go into rural communities across Ghana to take sustainability education to the people, where they are, and make it accessible to them. This will give them the tools they need to redesign their homes and their communities to solve their problems.