Thirty-five years ago，with just one acre of land，a couple of seeds and a bucket of hope，one Nigerian-born scientist began his mission to defeat famine (饥荒) on his continent.
News of the drought across Africa in the early 1980s troubled Nzamujo. Equipped with a microbiology PhD and his faith, he travelled back to Africa. There, he found a continent ecologically rich, diverse and capable of producing food. He believes drought wasn't the only reason for widespread hunger, and that sustainability had been left out.
Nzamujo began designing a "zero waste" agriculture system that would not only increase food security，but also help the environment and create jobs. In 1985, he started his sustainable farm "Songhai" in the West African country of Benin.
Nzamujo lives on the farm and constantly updates his techniques：He credits his degrees in science and engineering for Songhai's success. But he also thanks his spiritual and cultural roots，and his father—a driving force in his life who encouraged him to pursue his studies to the highest degree and to use Songhai to share his knowledge.
Songhai has several "eco-literacy" development programs. They range from 18-month training courses for farmer-enterprisers, to shorter stays to learn techniques like weeding. People come from all over the world to study Nzamujo's methods.
After seeing success on his first zero waste farm, he expanded throughout Benin and western Africa. Today, the Songhai model is applied across the continent, including Nigeria, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Nzamujo says they've trained more than 7,000 farmer-enterprisers and more than 30,000 people in total since it began.
Nzamujo believes zero waste agriculture is now steadily tackling the issues he set out to defeat: hunger，unemployment and environmental declines. And he wants to see it go further.
