In this photo, is Sam teaching a farmer (pastor) about pruning Moringa trees.

Pastor Joel Owano is a pastor in the same church as Rosalia (ECCA – Evangelical Christ Church in Africa). His wife, Grace, learnt about Moringa at a workshop with another NGO and later from Rosalia in the church. She and her husband planted a lot of trees in their farm and they are using them as vegetable. They have also shared seeds with others in the church and community.

They asked us to visit partly to show what they had done but more because they had heard that Moringa was a useful medicine. The main product we use from Moringa is the leaves. Although very useful as a fresh vegetable, similar to spinach, the leaves are most useful when dried and crushed into powder. They then become a very high value nutritionally balanced food supplement.

The big trees do not produce so many leaves and those that are produced are difficult to harvest, so for best value the trees are cut back so that they sprout (coppice) and produce abundant leaves. Here Samuel Ouma is showing Pastor Joel how to do this on one of his trees. Note the many seed pods on the tree behind and how compatible the trees are with the maize crop.