Amie Burrell
Barbara Hachipuka Banda is the founder of Natural Agriculture Development Program Zambia (NADPZ). Established in 2005 in partnership with SHUMEI International, NADPZ works with cooperatives of more than 6,000 women farmers in rural villages to develop natural agricultural techniques that promote food security, environmental restoration, and financial independence for farmers.
I began my time with Barbara by asking her about song. I had noticed in some of the previous research I did on her work that she often initiates her speeches with a song. This stood out to me not only because it was uncommon (at least in the context of the Western world where these speeches took place), but because this embodied and alive way of arriving on stage in front of an audience felt like a wake-up call, a call to look closely and listen in. I was curious about where this came from. Was this a personal or cultural practice? What were her intentions behind it? Her initial response was simple, practical and a bit surprising to me given her gregarious nature. Singing, she said, was a way to calm her nerves around public speaking. But then, she went a layer deeper into the significance of using music as a means of introduction. She spoke to her identity as a Zambian, an African, and her faith in and dedication to her cultural heritage. She made note of the disconnection and materialism that runs rampant in Western cultures and modern societies. She made the connection between song and the people of Africa. She said, “in Africa, we have a lot of problems. But there is a power in the people that drives our hearts, minds, everything we do, beyond our problems.” Song, for her, has been a way of infusing this pride, resilience and wisdom from her native culture into conversations on global change. This wholehearted, creative and embodied way of bringing herself and her culture to the stage is deeply felt in her presence and her work.
Barbara is currently residing in the UK, but she has a clear and determined vision to return to Zambia one day. The pride and love for her cultural roots is unmistakable and her perspective as a Zambian woman living in Europe carries a dose of potent medicine for our global ecological crisis. Her vision cuts through the complex web of problems that modern society and development have produced and sees right to the root of it all. Barbara says she is looking to “scale-up connection.” Her dream is for a more connected Zambia, Africa, and world. She believes that all of our problems in today’s world stem from a lack of connection, togetherness or, in her words, Ubuntu[1]. She says, “my whole vision and model is not just about regenerative agriculture to fight climate change. That is one of the problems. The major issue is the lack of connection, spirituality and disconnection with our ancestors. The loss of that information is breeding a lonely society.”
We spoke further about the role that ancestry plays in reclaiming a connection with nature. In Barbara’s vision of development for Zambia, progress must be grounded in the heart, ancestry and the Earth. The element of ancestry felt salient to me in a conversation about regenerative agriculture, so I asked her to speak more on the subject. She shared her personal connection with ancestry and how she was raised to understand her life in the context of the lives that came before her. Her parents raised her with an awareness of who she is in relation to where she came from, so ancestry naturally played an important role in her understanding of herself and the world. Furthermore, as she has come to know the women she works with, she has found that ancestry has a great deal to do with reclaiming the wisdom and agricultural practices from previous generations.
When Zambia began to open its markets to foreign, multi-national business, it significantly impacted Zambian culture and the country’s economy. One of the detrimental outcomes of this was the influence of large agricultural businesses partnered with government policy that forced farmers to forget their ancient ways of farming and buy hybrid seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. Farmers soon became dependent on this model of agriculture for survival. Barbara spoke to the many layers of destructive side effects that this change in agricultural practices produced: “The farmers connection to their land, soil and the natural environment was severed. We started poisoning our land more. It made the farming process lazier. There was no more singing and dancing. It became mechanical.” Barbara has found a fountain of hope in the recovery of ancestral knowledge through her work with women farmers. Many of the women she works with are of a generation that grew up with grandparents whose farming practices were not influenced by foreign investment. “These practices were embedded in their psyche. They knew how to save seed, when to plant their crop, they knew what the rain patterns would be like throughout the season based on looking at the fruit trees.” She says that when she hears these women speak about the past compared to how things are today, there is a sadness to their tone. Barbara sees less support and connectedness in today’s Zambia due to outside influence from more individualistic cultures and the process of modernization. Because of this, NADPZ has added a youth element to their work that aims to encourage young people to take pride in farming as a vocation.
Barbara refers to ancestry as her fuel for action, but we also spoke about the heart as a key ingredient. I asked her what it meant for her to be “driven by heart.” She took me through her personal story leading up to her mother’s death in a tragic car accident when Barbara was still in her 20’s. She shared that at first she spent a long time feeling sorry for herself and wanting others to feel sorry for her. However, she described a guiding spirit that led her right back to her mother’s legacy and work. Shortly after the loss of her mother, she attended the GPIW Pan-African Youth Summit in Senegal. There, she found a plugged-in community of likeminded young people who were seeking to make sustainable change that was rooted in spiritual sustenance. The summit was life-changing for Barbara and it was there that she found, what she calls, her “roadmap” to change. Because of this, she thinks of herself as a “product of the Global Peace Initiative of Women,” and considers our work to be essential nourishment for changemakers. Around this time of her life, there was a day that Barbara woke up and realized that she was going to live her life by action. She says, “it’s one thing to say this or that would be good for the world, but it’s another thing to live a life where you contribute that good through your actions.” This became a driving force that transformed her life. Barbara believes that we so often say words that become empty without the action to back them up. Speaking about how to make changes in the world may have its place and time, but living those changes is where our beliefs become manifest and deeper healing is possible. This is Barbara’s motto that propels her vision forward. Even if her actions are only a few small steps, in the larger picture those steps are worth everything to her. Those small steps, she says, are what take us closer to our next stage of evolution; and in the process she hopes to create a world worthy of future generations.
We spoke further about grief and loss and the role it has played for Barbara in finding herself and her life’s purpose. After her mother’s death, there was a moment when Barbara realized that her grief alone would not change anything. She was being called to dig deep into her character, into who she was, in order to go forward. At that moment, Barbara made a commitment with herself that “every day would be a positive day, regardless of circumstance.” She explained that this insight helped her see that even when her life was frozen with devastation and loss, the world kept on turning. She says, “there is nothing that can stop the world from turning, so therefore I have to keep turning with it.” This wisdom took on a new weight and meaning with each loss she faced in her life. Four years after her mother’s passing, she lost her sister to kidney failure; and a few years after that, she lost her son. At hearing this, the magnitude of such bereavement felt immeasurable to me. She likened the death of her son to losing a limb, an absence that will forever be felt. Since he passed, Barbara has been piecing herself back together and slowly rebuilding her vision. She says that each loss in her life has asked her to dig deep to find her purpose and sense of self. Her inner strength and rootedness are palpable, and they have not emerged without tribulation. Such clarity has come from the daily choice to transform loss into action, grief into purpose. Along the way, she has discovered that her love for people and passion to create change in this world was actually there before her life even knew tragedy. She says that her mission began when she came into existence and it is what continues to drive her forward to live her vision for this world through a kind of action that is not just about doing, but an interconnected action grounded in heart and purpose.
[1] A South African term that stems from a philosophy of togetherness and literally means “I am because we are.”