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From Zero — where everything feeds itself

The places

The FromZeroSpots

Every spot runs the same loop on whatever ground it is given. Chak Shahzad is the one you can visit today.

  • The ground at Quaid-e-Azam University at first look: broken earth turned by hand, thorny scrub at the edges, the first saplings in.
    The first one

    Quaid-e-Azam University

    Islamabad

    Where From Zero first went onto ground, on 15 August 2023, and where the name comes from. That ground is no longer ours — but nearly everything now growing at the other spots was proved on it first.

  • The beds and the tree line at Chak Shahzad, looking across the farm.
    Open now

    Chak Shahzad

    Islamabad

    8 kanals inside Shahjani Farms’ 44, given to us to work. The camps, the shop, the nursery and the herd are all here, and more land has already been committed.

  • In development

    Youth Development Center

    Karachi

    The same loop on city ground, on land lent to us at the Youth Development Center. Beds, compost and a nursery going in now. Not open to visitors yet.

  • Coming soon

    More FromZeroSpots

    All across Pakistan

    The same loop, on more ground — in the remotest and poorest places, each one taking in waste and giving back soil, food, seed and work. Announced here as they open.

WasIsWill be

Open invitation

Donate a Patch

Your campus or community

Have ground sitting idle? Give us a patch of your campus, society or community land and we will build a FromZeroSpot on it — at our cost, run by us, with the harvest and the learning staying with you.

  • We pay for itBeds, compost pits, nursery, tools and the team are ours — not a line on your budget.
  • Your waste stops leavingScrap from your canteen, mess or households is weighed in at the gate instead of trucked to a heap.
  • Food comes backVegetables, fruit, eggs and milk from the patch, at cost, to the people who gave the ground.
  • You can end itIf it is not working, the ground goes back to you — better than we found it.

The form lists everything you get, and what we ask of you.

A note from the founder

Why it is called From Zero

It started at home, in COVID. The stage had stopped, and what filled the house instead was plants — on every surface — and a duck pen in the yard. When there was no room left for any of it, my wife told me to move it out. That is what went looking for ground.

The ground was at Quaid‑e‑Azam University, from 15 August 2023. Thorny jungle, hard soil full of stones, and everyone who looked at it saying the same thing: not worth it. The plan was manure and water.

It worked. Kitchen scrap went in at the gate and came back out as soil, then as vegetables. Beds, a nursery, a herd and a flock followed, on ground that was supposed to be useless.

I was zeroed out, and I did this. It healed me, and it moved me from growing people to growing ecosystems. I am putting the two together now.

— Umair Jaliawala

The hands

Who Does It

Everything on this site was grown, potted, dug and carried by people who have been doing it far longer than From Zero has existed.

Munir filling pots by hand, one at a time, in the nursery.
Munir — every pot in the shop, filled by hand
Munir at Chak Shahzad, resting against a post at the end of a row.
Munir — forty years of it — most of what we know about this soil was shown to us on the ground
Tufail holding a bunch of just-pulled turnips and their greens.
Tufail — gardener since day one, and still the source of the cuttings

More of the team will be named here as they say how they want to be introduced.