Welcome to Creating New Edens In Africa

Creating New Edens in Africa-Njanja was founded on 22 August 2017 in Durban South Africa. Mr. Herbert Zinyama, the founder, had the goal of empowering the marginalized groups through skills development. In December 2022 CNEIA  moved its operation to Zimbabwe in a rural area called Njanja.  It has now successfully launched projects in Mashonaland East and Matebelaland South.  

The vision of CNEIA-Njanja is to train people who are unemployed or ‘under-employed’ to grow food according to the ‘Farming God’s Way’ sustainable agricultural methodology. We see the opportunity to build confidence and life-skills in the individuals involved, and ideally to see them move off the streets. Our hope is that trained workers will become trainers, taking their knowledge and confidence to breaking the residue of colonialism and the cycle of poverty in Zimbabwe and beyond. Creating New Edens in Africa implements sustainable agriculture for women and men, the homeless and refugees from conflict, drug abuse and poverty.  

CNEIA-N engages and trains these people in the sustainable no till agricultural methodology of Farming God's Way. These practices have demonstrated the ability to transform marginal land and make it productive. Now, Creating New Edens seeks to expand its program to serve more people and refugees. The graduates of Creating New Edens clear and farm their own land and move from subsistence to sustainable agriculture that can sustain a family. This creates human and economic capital which generates income and employment. They then become productive and not reliant on foreign aid and public welfare.  

Creating New Edens: The Economic Model  

The goal of Creating New Edens is to train subsistence farmers in the sustainable agricultural practices of Farming God's Way. This is a low impact, plow till methodology that enriches the soil. The enriched soil is more productive  

than the typical soil of subsistence agriculture. It produces crops that are sold in markets and provides income. This supports a family and makes them more productive on their land. Creating New Edens asks the graduates to give 10 percent of their production to the CNEIA-N to pay for the costs of new trainees and materials such as seeds, and the farm tools needed to expand the program.  This is evidence of the vision of the program in the community. To date, almost 1200 students in both South Africa and Zimbabwe have learned and implemented the methodology of Farming God’s Way. 

Creating New Edens in Africa is committed to transparency and accountability in the practice of its mission of providing a sustainable farming methodology to its students. Farming God's Way hopes to demonstrate its integrity with its practices and labour. On a quarterly basis receipts and expenditures will be reported on our website. The current budget and balance sheet will be reported.  

Lead Trainer and Manager  

The first Lead Trainer, Mr. Herbert Zinyama supervised the land clearing with the trainees. Now Mr.  John Chapeta  is the Lead trainer.  Both worked tirelessly to implement this vision. Mr. Chapeta  now instructs the students in Farming God's Way and supervises them as they implement the practices.He is in the field working with the students.

Africa is the most poverty stricken of all the world’s continents. One billion people live on less than $2 a day. Approximately 750 million subsistence farmers struggle to feed their families with marginal land, erratic rainfall, and poor transportation and distribution networks. They live on the edge of countries and are the victims of colonial exploitation, conflict and poor governance. Crime and corruption are the toll inflicted on those least able to afford it. Paul Collier and Jeffery Sachs have documented that living undernourished and impoverished lives where their current crop  yields barely provide for their family’s nutrition  

requirements is a catastrophe.  Famine is a failed crop away. 

The goal is to create the basis for entering the market economy with food for sale. When crops fail and international aid withers, typically there is migration to large cities which offers a glimmer of hope in the absence of viable alternatives. The reality is more dismal. They crowd the slums and live on the margins of existence, once again disease and malnutrition are rife.  Population growth pushes these farmers into the edges of subsistence endangering the lush habitat of natural beauty of Africa which supports myriad ecological wonders. Animal horns, tusks and organs are harvested and enter into illegal markets as food ornaments and aphrodisiacs. These animals are powerless against automatic weapons and traps from regional conflicts.  

Billions of dollars in aid stream into Africa every year yet the common refrain is that the aid does not impact those who are in most need. Corruption and the lack of knowledge result in a cycle of failure which perpetuates marginality and environmental degradation. 

https://opportunity.org/learn/lists/11-books-about-poverty-and-development#.XJ djIZg3mUk  

Faith: From dross and desert to bounty:  

The development process.  

There are many examples of poor soil and impoverished farmers turning depleted soil into lands of productive agriculture. What is lacking is not just fertilizer and seeds but the knowledge and organization to effect change in areas which appear devoid of hope. Deserts can bloom. Social capital is knowledge that acts on economic and human capital to multiply their value. In areas where education is minimal and cultural organization is both family and tribal, this expansion of knowledge is often hindered by traditions which have not adapted to change.  

Social capital is the basis for trust to confront social impediments to change. With trust larger social, cooperative and institutional structures to promote agricultural and democratic development can be created. Trust and  

knowledge are the first steps in development. Peoples, tribes and villages have tribal foundations as a basis for social organization and community cooperation. This is a powerful organizing force in all parts of Africa.  Trust and cooperation are the basis for economic and social development. It can be the basis for the accumulation of economic capital and diversification. This is the basis for the creation of trust and the confrontation of racial and ethnic hatred. Marginalized groups can then be brought into the community and become productive. Cultures typically have ecological foundations which stress not raw economic exploitation of natural resources but stewardship and management of the earth's bounty. This is an ethical and moral basis for preservation and guardianship of the land. These elements exist across faiths and cultures and run counter to the despoliation of rain forests, rivers, lakes and underground waters, tundra, oceans and the air we breathe. 

A minority of religious adherents argue that dominion and exploitation are defensible.  In that light we see rivers turned into sewers, the waste of mining piled into waste pile mountains that are pale limitations of the grandeur of Kilimanjaro.  Garbage is strewn in landfills that then seep into the soil and water poisoning it. The best of faith preserves and nurtures the earth. Faith can provide a foundation for growth and development even for those who do not adhere to a particular faith. Creating New Edens - Farming God's Way-FGW On the web site of the Alliance for Religions and Conservation, (http://www.arcworld.org/about_ARC.asp) Farming God's Way notes that religion is a powerful organizing force in Africa. Refugees sometimes see faith organizations supporting basic human needs in refugee camps, slums and marginal farming communities.  

Many refugees who flee conflict and terror have basic farming skills. It is important that these abilities be utilized as a form of economic capital to support development. Productive agriculture on a small plot of land may be superior to a marginal existence in a slum. But the types of farming in which they were engaged may be different than the prospects newly available to them. Basic agriculture can turn those who beg and await the next aid ration into active participants creating food and wealth. Beggars become the makers of the bread  

baskets of the earth.  

Empowerment and grass roots are words often used but difficult to envision except when one stands on a scared plot of land and sees the beginning of an agricultural and ecological transformation of that earth. 

New Knowledge to Create New Eden Farmers.   

The people who come to CNEIA-N become stewards of the land.  They learn to apply new methods which enrich the soil not with fertilizer but with the mulch they create.  Vegetable matter once left on the ground or sent to landfills is turned into compost as natural fertilizer. Labour contours the land to eliminate erosion. Cultivation rather than ploughing promotes plant growth and kills weeds around the plants without chemical weed killers. These are agricultural practices that are truly at the "grassroots" level where crops grow. These and other principles of agriculture can be taught and farmers can then become teachers to spread their knowledge and practices.  

There is a common narrative of many religions of the world that is not unique to Christianity.  There is the Garden of Eden. Islam has Paradise which some Muslims view as an oasis in the desert sheltered by lush date palms which provide shade and food. The Jewish Faith has the Land of Milk and Honey as they turned a worthless swampland into some of the most productive agriculture in the world.  

Irrigation and water practices conserve water and are now copied and practiced around the world. The question then is how to form these foundational ideas into policies and practices which care for the earth, feed its people and promote their welfare. These practices can be taught. From these practices will flow schools, infrastructure and practice in governance.