Friends of NWTC Magazine Friends Fall 2019 | Page 14

NW T C grad
gains international fame
helping villages build
clean wells and gardens
When Tantoh Nforba, also known as “Farmer” Tantoh, left his
central Africa home to begin studying agriculture in places
like northeast Wisconsin, his neighbors thought he was crazy.
Now his knowledge is helping create jobs and save lives.
Nforba, who graduated from NWTC in 2011 with a certificate
in organic agriculture and landscape horticulture, has since
garnered international praise for helping poor communities
improve local agriculture and build wells in Africa.
“It was so amazing, because I got to learn about the
sustainable agriculture in the Midwest and visit a lot of small
farmers, visit the farmers market and learn about how the
organic movement is growing,” he said before his lecture
in the College’s Student Center. “And horticulture—to see
how the industry is advancing in the Midwest, that gave me
perspective on how I could grow my movement in Cameroon.”
He said his time at NWTC helped him learn how to use the
environment to “re-green” his native country of Cameroon
and provide clean drinking water to around 50,000 people.
Nforba is known for traveling from tiny villages to cities in
Cameroon, organizing communities to plant sustainable
gardens and build wells— tactics meant to replace the
traditional ways of managing waste and land that have
become both obsolete and unhealthy as Cameroon’s
population has surged. The new gardens provide food and
stabilize the soil under homes, which keeps the buildings
from collapsing. In addition, the wells replace tainted water
sources that have historically caused illness and even death.
“We have our own indigenous ways of agriculture, but here
[in Wisconsin] we have advanced in agriculture,” Nforba said.
“I was trying to see how I could bring them together, to find
things that I can introduce at home.”
He found several—including irrigation techniques that could
allow for more growing during Cameroon’s dry season, as
well as new kinds of business practices in horticulture.
“People at home think planting flowers is a concept of
the West. But growing trees, flowers, plants, it will create
employment,” he said. “Young people are growing things [to
sell] and now they get income.”
Nforba recently returned to NWTC with Wisconsin-based
authors Baptiste and Miranda Paul. They spoke to students
and staff about Nforbas’s adventures including a new
children’s book the writers coauthored about his life, I Am
Farmer: Creating an Environmental Movement in Cameroon.
Baptiste and Miranda first heard Nforba speak at a
preschool eight years ago and were struck by the idea of
writing his story.
Miranda said she was particularly captivated by Nforba’s
drive to gather ranchers in the village of Fulani to build a
clean well.
“One grandfather had endured death after death among
his children and grandchildren from waterborne diseases,”
she said. “Now, their public tap is still flowing, year-round,
with really clean water. Since the new well, not one child has
gotten sick or died from waterborne illness. Tantoh is going
where no one else goes. There is no group of people too
small to help out.”
Baptiste said the way village locals help with Nforba’s
projects shows the strength and hope in humanity.
“This is really grassroots,” Baptiste said. “Every single person
contributed work on this. Every little child who can carry a
rock helped.”
Nforba himself contracted typhoid fever after drinking
tainted water. The disease halted his first attempt at
attending college and caused him to shift the goal of the
Save Your Future Association—an organization he founded
in 2005. Initially, SYFA was created to plant trees, flowers
and lawns to protect Africa’s environment and create
jobs. The organization now focuses on managing healthy
watersheds and forests.
NWTC helped him learn how to use the
environment to “re-green” his native country
of Cameroon and provide clean drinking
water to around 50,000 people.
Speaking about Tantoh Nforba,
Organic Agriculture and Landscape Horiculture
certificate student
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