Have you heard the saying, “money follows money”? It means that once you’ve received some grant funds or donations momentum builds and more people want to give to your project. It happens in crowdfunding campaigns, and it also happens in rural Malawi. When we attended the grand opening of the Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative in May 2017, one of the speakers was Paul Chunga of International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). ICRISAT had recently formed a

Slow Food Seed and Food Fair Report from Samuel & Peris Nderitu, Directors of The Grow Biointensive Agriculture Centre of Kenya (G-BIACK) G-BIACK, in partnership with Slow Food Kenya and Seed Savers, held a seed fair event earlier this summer in Muranga County. This event’s purpose was to create awareness among the small-holder farmers on the importance of embracing indigenous local seeds. These local seeds are resilient to the changing climatic conditions and are safer and m

“What are those crazy things hanging in the tree?” I asked the SIA Small Business Fund Coordinators when we saw them on the site of our conference in Uganda last summer. Most of us didn’t know what it was since Uganda is much more tropical than where the rest of us live. We did get to try the jackfruit before the end of the week and it was a nice mellow melon flavor. I was at a restaurant in Toronto recently that served jackfruit and it brought back good memories of being tog

Seeds are amazing things: from a tiny beginning comes growth, blossoms, and fruit. In a way, Spirit in Action is a seed that Del Anderson planted in the world. He was fascinated with the way that nurturing people and developing encouraging relationships could produce fruit far greater than what we see in a humble seed. Seed Grants We saw the grants we give and the projects we support as seeds. Indeed, we often call them “seed grants” because they are meant to be a beginning f