Sustainability Commitment

This organic farm used to be an abandoned cashew tree orchard and most of the land comprises rocks and very little topsoil. Each year, a long drought arrives at the end of April and stays all the way through to December. Having almost no access to water, many people have asked them "Why on Earth would you want to farm this land?". With no background in farming or gardening whatsoever, they started to read books on permaculture, agroecology, and regenerative farming. They quickly understood that the first step to regenerative farming is to build healthy soil. A soil full of microorganisms, that absorbs water and nutrients is essential to growing tasty organic crops and fighting against drought.

Growing Organic Veggies

From there the journey began, they gathered logs, branches, twigs, and leaves from the farm and its surroundings to create permanent layered beds that would eventually transform into soil rich in organic matter and life. Over the years, as material decomposed the beds have become more productive. Each year, the soil structure changes, and it's capacity to hold water grows, which allow them to farm further into the seasonal drought. Today, they grow a variety of seasonal crops like okra, tomatoes, eggplant, chili, cucumber, beans as well as many leafy greens that they used directly in their farm-to-table meals.

Planting A Food Forest

The food forest is a perennial system in which more than 80% of the plants and trees are edible. It is inspired by the forest in the sense that plants and trees all grow harmoniously together at a high density. Every layer of the system is occupied by a specific crop. On top trees are grown at different heights, coconut trees are emergents, mango trees as a high canopy, longan as a lower canopy, and below that shrubs and roots that can thrive with less sunlight.  Their newly planted food forest is slowly developing and they are learning which plants are best suited for their region.

Community First

Saifana Organic Farm started setting up Community Gardens at the begging of the pandemic. The North of Lombok depends mainly on tourism, and with the closing of the borders, a lot of people lost their jobs.

Food sovereignty. Their first started setting up gardens so villagers could grow and provide fresh and healthy food to their families. They also wanted to explore a barter system with a common Lumbung (granary) where the villagers can exchange their harvests or goods.

Community resilience. One of the main goals was to create connections around gardening. Community gardens provide opportunities for constructive activities, relationships, and interpersonal skill development.

Sustainable farming. They introduced natural farming, a practice where gardening means working with nature, not against it.

Trash Hero Bayan

Every week we clean, we educate, we change!
Trash Hero is a volunteer-led movement that drives changes within communities around the world. In 2019, they created Trash Hero Bayan so they could organize weekly clean-ups in their area, educate the kids to be more aware of their environment, and prevent plastic waste. All the data from the cleanups are collected and sent to Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), an NGO network that realizes global brand audits to identify the top global polluters. They use their data to push for systemic change in the production and disposal of single-use plastics.