Madagascar has had more than its share of bad luck in the last year. In 2009, a military coup deposed the government. But the government wasn't the only thing that collapsed. The island nation's $400 million per year tourism revenue also disappeared, which has led to increased logging and deforestation of Madagascar's forests. And many of the NGOs and aid agencies that were working in Madagascar for decades have found their projects hindered by new regime's policies-as a result, many have scaled back or left the country.
One NGO, however, the Italian-based Reggio Turzo Mundo (RTM), has continued to work with farmers in the country, despite the challenges. RTM works with farmers and farmers groups to develop alternatives to slash and burn agriculture, including organic farming practices that help build up soils.
In this regular series, we profile advisors to the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we feature Dave Andrews, Senior Representative for Food & Water Watch.
Crossposted from BorderJumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.
Originally featured in the North Carolina News Observer.
It's not every day you meet someone from Raleigh while traveling in Lusaka, Zambia. Dale Lewis might not have intended to spend decades in the landlocked African country of 12 million, but his passion for protecting wildlife and for conservation led him there - and his entrepreneurial spirit and desire to lift farmers from poverty while protecting the environment compelled him to stay.
Maralal, Kenya, is mostly known for its wildlife. And as we made the seven hour, bumpy trek from Nairobi - half of it on unpaved roads - we saw our fair share of water buffaloes, rhinos, impala, and giraffes. But we weren't here to go on safari. We were here to meet with a group of pastoralists - livestock keepers who had agreed to meet with us and talk about the challenges they face.
We met in the community primary school and it was humbling to see so many people - many wearing traditional Maasai clothing, brightly woven clothe, beads, elaborate earrings - come through the door to greet us.
Over the years, pastoralists like the well-known Maasai here in Kenya have been pushed out of their traditional grazing lands to drier and drier regions, places where it was easy to ignore them. But as the effects of climate change, hunger, drought and the loss of biodiversity become more evident, it's increasingly hard to push livestock keepers' rights aside. Governments need to recognize that pastoralists are the best keepers of genetic diversity.
In this regular series, we profile advisors to the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we feature Louise Buck, Senior Extension Associate at Cornell University. Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet
Name: Louise Buck
Affiliation: Cornell University and Ecoagriculture Partners
Location: Ithaca, New York, United States
Bio: Louise Buck is Senior Extension Associate at Cornell University. She joined the university's Department of Natural Resources in 1996 and has been associated with the Cornell International Institute for Food Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD) since 1993. Presently, Louise leads the Cornell Ecoagriculture Working Group. Her interests include community-based natural resource management, agroforestry, curriculum development for experiential learning, and participatory research.
Recent Work:
-L.E. Buck and S.J. Scherr, "Building innovation systems for managing complex landscapes," in K.M. Moore, ed., The Sciences and Art of Adaptive Management: Innovating for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management (Ankeny, IA: Soil and Water Conservation Society, 2009).
-J. Sayer and L.E. Buck, eds., "Learning from Landscapes," IUCN Forest Conservation Program and Ecoagriculture Partners, Arborvitae Special Issue, September 2008.
-"Farming the Forest," Cornell Plantations Magazine, vol. 62, no. 2 (2007), pp. 6-13.
-L.E. Buck, T.A. Gavin, N.T. Uphoff, and D.F. Lee, "Scientific Assessment of Ecoagriculture Systems," in S.J. Scherr and J.A. McNeely, eds., Farming with Nature: The Art and Science of Ecoagriculture (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2007).
On Nourishing the Planet: The Nourishing the Planet project will stimulate much-needed innovation in the development of integrated land-use and market systems that can deliver food production, environmental conservation, and livelihood security outcomes. It will also support innovation in the collaborative management of agriculture and natural resources at a landscape scale.
In many parts sub-Saharan Africa, 60 percent of children come to school in the morning without breakfast, if they attend school at all. Many suffer from health and developmental problems, including stunted growth. Exhausted from hunger and poor nutrition, they often have trouble paying attention and learning during class.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) provides school meals for about 20 million children in Africa. While some national governments, including in Côte d'Ivoire, have provided school meals for decades, the food, fuel, and financial crises of 2007-08 highlighted the role that school nutrition programs can play in not only improving education, health, and nutrition, but also providing a safety net for children living in poverty. For some children, these programs provide the only real meal of the day.
Improved school menus provide students with much-needed nutrition while also creating an incentive for both students and parents to keep up regular attendance. Some programs include a take-home ration, targeted specifically at improving the attendance of girls. In exchange for an 80-percent attendance rate for one month, for example, students are able to take home a jug of vegetable oil to their family. Students also often share the nutrition information they learn at school with family members, helping to improve the nutritional value of meals made at home.
Earlier this year, the Partnership for Child Development (PCD), in partnership with the WFP and with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched the Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) program. HGSF, modeled in part after programs developed by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), works with governments to develop and implement school feeding programs, improving the diets and education of students while also creating jobs and supporting local agriculture.
Cross posted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.
Nearly 40 years after Francis Moore Lappé wrote Diet for a Small Planet-one of the first books to take a hard look at the environmental and health problems caused by the meat industry-her daughter Anna Lappé has written a book exposing how the industrial food system is contributing to climate change. In Diet for a Hot Planet, Anna describes how are diets can be a crucial tool in the fight against global warming-and she gives a recipe for what an environmentally sustainable diet should look like, including more locally grown foods and eating less meat.
This is the first in a two-part series about Nourishing the Planet co-director Danielle Nierenberg's visit with COMACO in Zambia. Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.
One of the first things you notice about grocery stores in Zambia is the plethora of processed foods from around the world, from crackers made in Argentina and soy milk from China to popular U.S. breakfast cereals. Complementing these foreign foods, however, are a variety of locally made and processed products, including indigenous varieties of organic rice, all-natural peanut butter, and honey from the It's Wild brand.
It's Wild was started by the Community Markets for Conservation(COMACO), an organization founded over 30 years ago to conserve local wildlife. COMACO helps farmers improve their agricultural practices in ways that can protect the environment-such as through conservation farming-while also creating a reliable market for farm products. It organizes the farmers into producer groups, encouraging them to diversify their skills by raising livestock and bees, growing organic rice, using improved irrigation and fisheries management, and other practices, so that they don't have to resort to poaching elephants or other wildlife.
By targeting hard-to-reach farmers that live near protected areas, "we're trying to turn things around," says Dale Lewis, Executive Director of COMACO. For decades, many farmers in eastern Zambia practiced slash-and-burn agriculture and were involved in widespread elephant poaching. Farmers killed elephants and burned forests not because they were greedy, but because it was their only alternative, Lewis explains. Degraded soils, the lack of effective agricultural inputs, and drought left many farmers in the region desperate, forcing them to turn to poaching and environmentally destructive farming practices.
Crossposted from BorderJumpers.org and originally featured on Thought Leader, written by Danielle Nierenberg, senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and Jim De Vries, director of Heifer International's Programs Division.
From public-service announcements on television to billboards - it's the motto for a place that just 15 years ago was torn apart by genocide. More than one million people were murdered in 1994 as ethnic strife turned neighbour against neighbour in one of the bloodiest civil wars in African history.
"Heifer is helping a recovery process," explained Dr Dennis Karamuzi, a veterinarian and the programmes manager for Heifer International Rwanda. Heifer started its projects in Rwanda in 2000 in a community in Gicumbi District, about an hour outside of Kigali, the capital. This community was especially hard hit by the genocide because it's close to the border with Uganda. Residents, who weren't killed, fled to Kigali for safety.
In the years following the genocide, Gicumbi District is making a comeback thanks, in part, to Heifer International. Heifer works with farmers all over the world, helping them develop sustainable agriculture practices, including providing livestock and training farmers how to raise them.
Heifer's start in Rwanda was a little rocky. At first the community was suspicious of the group - because they were giving farmers "very expensive cows" says Holindintwali Cyprien, one of the farmers trained by Heifer to raise dairy cows; they didn't understand how the group could just give them away. Many community members thought that it was a plot by the government to have them raise livestock and then take them away, a remnant of the ethnic rivalry between the Hutus and Tutsis that started the conflict there in the 1990s.
But Heifer introduced a South African dairy breed, known for its high milk production, because, according to Dr Karamuzi, "no stock of good [dairy cow] genes" was left in the country after the genocide. And he says that these animals help prove "that even poor farmers can take care of high-producing cows".
And these animals don't only provide milk - which can be an important source of protein for the hungry - and income to families. They also provide manure, which is a source of fertiliser for crops and is now helping provide bio-gas for cooking to households raising cows in the country as part of a national bio-gas programme.
Madame Helen Bahikwe, another farmer in Gicumbi District, began working with Heifer International in 2002. She now has five cows - and an excess of manure. With a subsidy from the government, Helen built a bio-gas collection tank, which allows her to use the methane from decomposing manure to cook for her 10-person family. She no longer has to collect or buy firewood, saving both time and money and protecting the environment. The fuel is also cleaner burning, eliminating the smoke that comes from other sources of fuel.
Heifer is also helping farmers become teachers, training other Heifer partners. Holindintwali Cyprien hasn't always been a farmer. After the genocide, he and his wife, Donatilla, were school teachers, making about $USD50 monthly. Living in a small house constructed of mud, without electricity or running water they were saving to buy a cow to help increase their income. But when Heifer International started working in Rwanda almost a decade ago, Cyprien and Donatilla were chosen as one of the first 93 farmers in the country to be Heifer partner families. Along with the gift of a cow, the family also received training and support from Heifer project coordinators.
Today, they've used their gift to not only increase their monthly income - they now make anywhere from $USD 300-600 a month - but also improved the family's living conditions and nutrition. In addition to growing elephant grass and other fodder - one of Heifer's requirements for receiving animals - for the 5 cows they currently own, Cyprien and Donatilla are also growing vegetables and keeping chickens. They've built a brick house and have electricity and are earning income by renting their other house.
Today, Cyprien is going back to his roots and making plans to teach again - this time to other farmers. He wants "the wider community to benefit from his experience".
And Heifer's work is now being recognised - and supported - by the Rwandan government. In 2008 the government instituted the One Cow Per Poor Household Programme, which aims to give the 257 000 of the poorest households in the country training and support to raise milk for home consumption.
But Heifer, says, Dr Karamuzi, is also building an exit strategy by connecting farmers to cooperatives, which can organise and train farmers themselves.
The highways in southern Africa are filled with trucks carrying food aid across the continent. In the past, much of the maize, rice, soy, and other foods loaded onto these trucks came not from African farmers, but from the United States. And while these shipments provided much needed calories to people in need, they also disrupted national and local markets by lowering prices for locally grown food.
But today, more and more of the crops providing food aid come from African farmers who are selling directly to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) through local procurement policies. In Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zambia, and several other nations in sub-Saharan Africa (as well as in Asia and Latin America), WFP is not only buying locally, but helping small farmers gain the skills necessary to be part of the global market.
The WFP's Progress for Profit (P4P) program, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the Belgian government, is working with the private sector, governments, and NGOs to provide an incentive for farmers to improve their crop management skills and produce high-quality food, create a market for surplus crops from small and low-income farmers, and promote locally processing and packaging of products.
In Zambia, WFP buys food directly from the Zambia Agricultural Commodity Exchange while remaining "invisible," says Felix Edwards of the Zambia P4P Program. This way, WFP Zambia doesn't distort prices and helps create an alternative market for farmers. WFP also works through its partners, including USAID's PROFIT program, to help farmers and farmer associations meet the quality standards required by the Exchange. As a result, they are preparing Zambian farmers to provide high-quality food aid not only to programs and consumers in their own country, but also potentially to growing regional and international markets.
The U.S. Agency for International Development's Production, Finance, and Technology (PROFIT) program in Lusaka, Zambia, is different from other development projects, according to Rob Munro, the program's senior market development advisor. This is because PROFIT has "real clients" in the private sector who maintain relationships with smallholder farmers.
By working with these partners, PROFIT isn't distorting the market "by throwing money at it" or giving farmers subsidies for inputs, such as fertilizer. Instead, it is working with farmers, the private sector, and donors to improve the competitiveness of rural businesses by linking large agribusiness firms to farmers. It's helping to improve linkages within industries that large numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises participate in, such as cotton, livestock, and non-timber forest products like honey.
Specifically, PROFIT helps communities select and train agricultural agents who work with agribusiness to provide inputs to farmers in rural areas-places where agribusiness firms had been reluctant to go because they didn't think there was a big enough market. The agents are essentially entrepreneurs who provide goods and services that the communities didn't have access to. In addition to selling things like hybrid maize or fertilizer, the agents can also provide ripping services to farmers practicing conservation farming methods, as well as herbicide spraying and veterinary services.
The "key" to the program's success, says Munro, is that the agent is a "community man" selected by the communities themselves, not by agribusiness firms. The farmers trust the agent not to run off with their money and to deliver the goods and services they've purchased.
Unlike traditional development projects that "inundate" communities with trainers, PROFIT minimizes the number of USAID staff involved locally, helping to ensure that the project isn't viewed as traditional "aid," which can create dependency. Unlike the AGRA-supported CNFA, which relies extensively on its own staff to train agro-dealers, 80 percent of the trainings for agents are not provided by PROFIT, but by firms that are training agents how to use their products.
PROFIT's model means that the program doesn't work "with the poorest of the poor," but with farmers who have the ability to scale up, says PROFIT chief of party Mark Wood. If you start with the very poorest, Wood says, "it's like trying to start a car without an engine." But by working with the 200,000 farmers in Zambia who have the means to collaborate with businesses, PROFIT is helping to create opportunities for thousands of poorer farmers in the future.
Stay tuned this week for more about PROFIT and Mobile Technology's work to help small and medium-sized enterprises and farmers use mobile phone technology for e-banking services and to access market information.
Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet, www.nourishingtheplanet.com
"Meet the Nourishing the Planet Advisory Group" is a new regular series where we profile advisors of the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we're featuring Shayna Bailey, who is Director of International Development for Slow Food International."
Bio: Shayna Bailey is Director of International Development for Slow Food International. She works on organizational development, strategic partnerships, and resource mobilization at Slow Food's international headquarters in Italy. She has a M.A. in Sustainable Development and a B.A. in International Business, and has worked on and managed Community-Supported Agriculture programs in the U.S. states of California, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, as well as in St. Croix. Bailey has researched perceptions of food security with Quichua women in the Ecuadorian Andes and has studied ecological horticulture at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California-Santa Cruz. She represents Slow Food in the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty and is involved in planning the 4th meeting of Terra Madre - World Meeting of Food Communities, to be held in October 2010.
On Nourishing the Planet: Nourishing the Planet is an important opportunity to show the world that there are effective alternatives to solving the problems of hunger and poverty that are already in practice, and are replicable on a larger scale. Many of these innovations are not well known to diverse and international audiences. This project gives visibility to lesser-known sustainable approaches that tackle some of the most critical and complex issues of our time. Nourishing the Planet will surely shift policymakers', development workers', and ordinary citizens' perspectives on what it will take to decrease hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.
Slow Food International states that it works to counteract fast food and fast life by bringing together pleasure and responsibility to make them inseparable. Can you give specific examples of how Slow Food does this?
Fast food and fast life create a gap between us and our food. There is less time to savor the tastes of the seasons and the joy of food shared in company. We eat to fill our stomachs, without thinking of the implications. Slow Food works to create a broad cultural shift in the relationship people around the world have with the food they eat. Pleasure is important to our daily food rituals. Responsibility without pleasure does not encourage us to enjoy mealtimes, to preserve our cultural traditions, or to value and appreciate our food. Pleasure without responsibility, however, is negligent. Our disconnection with food results in a negative impact on environment, economy, culture, and health.
Our decisions about purchasing and consuming food have a direct effect on the food production and supply chain. For example, the demand for artificially 'cheap' food on the market means: that our food is unfairly sourced from low-paid labor and, often, is inspected under questionable standards of quality; that varieties of fruits and vegetables are favored for their ease of transportation instead of for their vitamin and mineral content; that we produce enough food in the world for 12 billion people when we have a global population of less than 7 billion, meaning that we waste almost half of all food produced while 1 billion people go hungry; that our children eat food at school that causes diet-related diseases and obesity; and, that, as a result, we spend millions on health care and environmental clean-up to address these externalized costs of our food system.
The concept of making pleasure and responsibility inseparable permeates all of Slow Food's programs-from raising awareness through workshops and connecting consumers directly to food producers, to supporting small-scale farmers in creating a sustainable product that also has great taste quality and preserves culture, to teaching children that the sweetest carrot they have ever tasted comes not from a plastic bag in the supermarket, but right from their own garden.
Can you explain how preserving biodiversity helps improve quality of life and save communities and cultures?
Biodiversity in our food systems leaves us less vulnerable to climatic changes, to economic crises, to the homogenization of cultures, and to public health epidemics. Just as you would diversify your investment portfolio to manage financial risk, biodiversity in food and agriculture minimizes threats to these systems and lessens the impact of negative influences. The genetically uniform crop of potatoes planted and consumed in the 1840s greatly exacerbated the Irish potato famine, which killed 1 million people and caused the emigration of a million more. The blight that struck Europe would not have had such a terrible impact on the potato crop in Ireland if a diversity of potatoes had instead been planted.
Indigenous cultures are often the custodians of biodiversity, preserving not only traditional seed varieties but also diverse agricultural practices. This knowledge can serve to mitigate and adapt to adverse environmental changes that complicate the cycle of hunger and poverty. Some traditional communities use more than 200 different species in their diets, while the average community in developed countries uses a maximum of 30. These 30 food species, out of 7,000 domesticated species that have spanned the history of agriculture, account for 90 percent of our daily diets. Over the last 100 years, 75 percent of our food crops have disappeared. Agricultural systems that are rich in biodiversity increase food security and improve nutrition for communities, while protecting soil fertility and providing pollinators-essential for food production-with healthy ecosystems.
What are some of the fairs, events, and markets you organize to foster greater connection between producers and co-producers? What is the value in creating this connection?
The idea of 'responsibility' is demonstrated in Slow Food's use of the word 'co-producer' as opposed to consumer. Instead of passively making food choices, a co-producer makes educated decisions about the food they eat and, when possible, actively supports the people who produce their food. Slow Food organizes initiatives around the world to directly link producers and co-producers, including Salone del Gusto, Earth Markets, educational projects, and thousands of events by our local chapters (convivia) comprised of 100,000 members in 132 countries. Slow Food is also growing regional networks out of Terra Madre, a global network of food producers, cooks, academics, and youth, to create this cultural shift and grow sustainable food systems on national and regional levels.
This direct link between producers and co-producers is important since, in the United States for example, 91 cents of every dollar spent on food goes to middlemen for packaging, shipping, transportation, and marketing, while only 9 cents goes to the farmer. By shortening the supply chain, consumers pay less and eat better, and farmers earn a fair wage. Besides the obvious economic and health values, this connection also reinforces positive community development, preserves local cultural practices, and educates consumers on the realities of where their food comes from and from whom.
Do you see any connection or potential connection between the "slow food" or "whole food" movements in the United States and Europe, and the work that Slow Food is doing internationally? Why should consumers in the United States care about preserving biodiversity or food traditions in Uganda, for example?
In many ways, consumers are now facing similar food-system issues in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Lack of access to food that is healthy and fresh is not only happening in the neighborhoods of Yaoundé, but also in the food deserts of North America. Over-nutrition is a problem now in sub-Saharan Africa, right alongside under-nutrition, and both can be caused by poverty. People who have migrated to urban areas are eating foods that are low in nutritional value, and, consequently, are fighting diabetes and other diet-related diseases.
There are parents in every country who want their kids to eat good food at school, and gardens on school grounds are growing in every corner of the globe. Engaging the next generation of farmers, and ensuring that they have the skills and the markets to make a living, is another common thread of concern. Nearly everyone we speak with agrees that it is increasingly difficult to slow down and share a meal with friends and families, and that we are forgetting our cultural and culinary heritage.
The effort to feed the world almost exclusively by an industrial approach to food production and consumption is demonstrating its inadequacy in terms of health, environmental, economic, and cultural consequences. Consumers in the United States should care about preserving biodiversity and food traditions in Uganda because they are faced with the same dilemmas at home, because we can learn from one another to improve the situation, and because many American agricultural and trade policies, not to mention cultural influences, have had-and continue to have-a huge negative impact on less-developed nations' food systems. It goes back to the concept of pleasure and responsibility: we cannot enjoy our food and ignore the system that produced it. In the end, that system affects us all.
Cross posted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.
In 1999, when he purchased his first treadle pump, Robert Mwanza, a farmer in Lusaka, Zambia, was struggling to make ends meet and without reliable access to water. As his country dealt with drought and economic weakness, Robert lacked the necessary resources to irrigate his farm and “couldn’t grow enough to eat, let alone sell.”
Access to water is a luxury that many rural households, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, do not have. Farmers must often travel long distances to collect water from streams or public wells, making it impossible to irrigate crops or have enough water for cooking and bathing.
IDE is making irrigation more efficient by combining technology specially designed to address the needs of small-scale farmers with on-the-ground support staff to provide training and education. This allows farmers to expand their farms, feed their families, and earn a profit from selling surplus crops.
After just two years of improved irrigation provided by a treadle pump, Robert Mwanza grew more than enough vegetables to feed his wife and eight children. He also earned enough money to purchase an additional pump, doubling the amount of land he could irrigate. He recruited his brother, Andrew Mwanza, to work the additional pump, and in three years, with the help of IDE field staff, Robert began to sell his produce to Agriflora, a company that exports high-quality vegetables to Europe. Now the two brothers are growing enough vegetables to afford a motorized petrol pump for $750, further reducing the labor required to increase production.
It’s hard to believe, but an estimated 2.6 billion people in the developing world—nearly a third of the global population—still lack access to basic sanitation services. This presents a significant hygiene risk, especially in densely populated urban areas and slums where contaminated drinking water can spread disease rapidly. Every year, some 1.5 million children die from diarrhea caused by poor sanitation and hygiene.
It is in these crowded cities, too, that food security is weakened by the lack of clean, nutrient-rich soil as well as growing space available for local families.
But there is an inexpensive solution to both problems. A recent innovation, called the Peepoo, is a disposable bag that can be used once as a toilet and then buried in the ground. Urea crystals in the bag kill off disease-producing pathogens and break down the waste into fertilizer, simultaneously eliminating the sanitation risk and providing a benefit for urban gardens. After successful test runs in Kenya and India, the bags will be mass produced this summer and sold for U.S. 2–3 cents each, making them more accessible to those who will benefit from them the most.
In post-earthquake Haiti, where many poor and homeless residents are forced to live in garbage heaps and to relieve themselves wherever they can find privacy, SOIL/SOL, a non-profit working to improve soil and convert waste into a resource, is partnering with Oxfam GB to build indoor dry toilets for 25 families as well as four public dry toilets. The project will establish a waste composting site to convert dry waste into fertilizer and nutrient-rich soil that can then be used to grow vegetables in rooftop gardens and backyards.
In Malawi, Stacia and Kristof Nordin’s permaculture project (which Nourishing the Planet co-director Danielle Nierenberg visited during her tour of Africa) uses a composting toilet to fertilize the crops. Although these units can be expensive to purchase and install, one company, Rigel Technology, manufactures a toilet that costs just US$30 and separates solid from fluid waste, converting it into fertilizer. The Indian non-profit Sulabh International also promotes community units that convert methane from waste into biogas for cooking.
On a larger scale, wetlands outside of Calcutta, India, process some 600 million liters of raw sewage delivered from the city every day in 300 fish-producing ponds. These wetlands produce 13,000 tons of fish annually for consumption by the city’s 12 million inhabitants. They also serve as an environmentally sound waste treatment center, with hyacinths, algal blooms, and fish disposing of the waste, while also providing a home for migrating birds and an important source of local food for the population of Calcutta. (See also “Fish Production Reaches a Record.”)
Aside from cost and installation, the main obstacles to using human waste to fertilize crops are cultural and behavioral. UNICEF notes in an online case study that a government-run program in India provided 33 families in the village of Bahtarai with latrines near their houses. But the majority of villagers still preferred to use the fields as toilets, as they were accustomed to doing their whole lives. “It is not enough just to construct the toilets,” said Gaurav Dwivedi, Collector and Bilaspur District Magistrate. “We have to change the thinking of people so that they are amenable to using the toilets.”
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is holding the third global meeting of the Farmers' Forum this week in Rome, Italy. The Forum-which brings together more than 70 farmers groups from around the world-is an opportunity for IFAD and other groups to learn firsthand, from farmers, the challenges they face in the field.
On Saturday, the Forum held a workshop to discuss the unique challenges faced by women farmers. Women are the majority of farmers in the world-particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where up to 80 percent of farmers are women. In addition to the day-to-day problems faced by women farmers-including the lack of access to credit and land tenure-women also are underrepresented in farmers groups, associations, and unions, making it hard for their voices to be heard.
But by increasing women's participation and representation in these groups, women and men farmers alike can work together to improve gender awareness, as well as improve their access to loans and agricultural inputs and land tenure.
Participants at the forum are also discussing the importance of increasing agricultural education among youth. Youth make up 60 percent of the population in rural areas and making agriculture an attractive and economically viable option for them in the future will be important for improving food security and livelihoods (See Cultivation a Passion for Agriculture).
This is the second in a two-part series about my visit to the Rainman Landcare Foundation in Durban, South Africa. Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.
The Rainman Landcare Foundation, founded by Raymond Auerbach, is training farmers living outside of Durban on how to grow food without the use of artificial pesticides, insecticides, or fertilizers, as well as permaculture methods that efficiently use water and build up soils. "But it won't be enough to just grow organic food," says Raymond. "You also need to market it." Check out this video where Raymond explains how, in addition to teaching farmers organic agriculture practices, the Rainman Foundation helps them establish links with the private sector:
Earthmother Organic Store and Restaurant is an example of a business that is also providing a link for farmers to the private sector. Check out this video of Danielle explaining how the store and restaurant gives farmers, like those trained by the Rainman Landcare Foundation, a market for their produce.
Madyo Couto has a tough job. He works under the Mozambique Ministry of Tourism to help manage the country's Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs). These areas were initially established to help conserve and protect wildlife, but they're now evolving to include other uses of land that aren't specifically for conservation.
Madyo explained that in addition to linking the communities that live near or in conservation areas to the private sector to build lodges and other services for tourists, they're also helping farmers establish honey projects to generate income. In many of national parks and other conservation areas, farmers resort to poaching and hunting wildlife to earn money. Establishing alternative-and profitable-sources of income is vital to protecting both agriculture and biodiversity in the TFCAs.
Stay tuned for more blogs about the links between wildlife conservation and agriculture.
This is the first in a two-part series about my visit to the Kyeema Foundation in Maputo, Mozambique. Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.
Although avian influenza and H1N1 have dominated the news for the last few years, many other serious diseases can ravage livestock and rural communities. Newcastle disease, which can wipe out entire flocks of chickens and can spread from farm to farm, is especially devastating for rural farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
Vaccines for Newcastle used to be hard to come by in Africa. They were imported and usually expensive, putting them out of reach of small farmers. And even when they were available, they required refrigeration, which is not common in many rural villages.
Today, however, thanks to the work of the International Rural Poultry Center of the Kyeema Foundation in Mozambique, villages have access not only to vaccines, but also to locally trained community vaccinators (or para-vets) who can help spot and treat Newcastle and other poultry diseases before they spread.
With help from a grant from the Australian Government's overseas aid program (AusAID), Kyeema developed a thermo-stable vaccine that doesn't need to be refrigerated and is easier for rural farmers to administer to their birds. Dr. Rosa Costa, Kyeema's director in Mozambique, explained that vaccinations take place three times a year and farmers are taught-with cleverly designed flip-charts and posters-how to apply the vaccines with eyedroppers.
In addition, according to Dr. Costa, the community vaccinators try to link the control of Newcastle with efforts to address avian influenza because the symptoms of the two diseases-coughing, diarrhea, lethargy, runny eyes, mortality-are often similar.
Community leaders help Kyeema identify people who are well respected in the community to be community vaccinators, who then receive training. The vaccinators aren't compensated by Kyeema, but they can make a small profit from each bottle of vaccination. Typically, women are chosen as vaccinators, says Dr. Costa. Not only do they tend to stay in the villages more than men, but the money they earn usually does much more to help the family because they use it to buy food or schoolbooks for their children.
Because more birds are surviving because of vaccinations, Kyeema is also working with farmers to build better housing for their poultry and to find additional sources of feed.
Stay tuned for more on our visit to Kyeema later this week.
This is the final in a four-partseries about my visit to Stacia and Kristof Nordin's permaculture project in Lilongwe, Malawi. Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.
Travel anywhere in Malawi and you'll see people sweeping-the sidewalks, the floors of their houses, and the bare dirt outside their homes. And while the sweeping makes everything look tidy, it's also one of the major causes of damage to soils in the country. Because sweeping compacts soils, leaving it without any organic matter, erosion is widespread and the soil has very little nutrients. As a result, crops-especially corn-in Malawi rely heavily on the use of artificial fertilizers.
Kristof and Stacia Nordin have been working in Malawi to help educate farmers that "tidy" yards and gardens aren't necessarily better for producing food or the environment. Stacia works for the German-base NGO GTZ, while Kristof runs the farm and is a community facilitator. Their home is used as a demonstration plot for permaculture methods that incorporate composting, water harvesting, intercropping and other methods that help build organic matter in soils, conserve water, and protect agricultural diversity.
"Design," says Kristof, "is key in permaculture," meaning that everything from the garden beds to the edible fish pond to the composting toilet have an important role on their property. And while their neighbors have been skeptical of the Nordins' unswept yard, they're impressed by the quantity-and diversity-of food grown by the family. More than 200 indigenous fruits and vegetables are grown on the land, providing a year round supply of food to the Nordins and their neighbors.
In addition, they're training the 26 tenants who rent houses on the property to practice permaculture techniques around their homes and have built an edible playground, where children can play and learn about different indigenous fruits. More importantly, the Nordins are showing that by not sweeping, people can get more out of the land than just maize.
Such practices will become even more important as drought, flooding, other effects of climate change continue to become more evident in Malawi and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
For more about permaculture, check out Chapter 6, "From Agriculture to Permaculture" in State of the World 2010, which was released today.
Crossposted from Nourishing the Planet. I've had the opportunity to try some traditional-and tasty-local foods while I've been traveling in Africa, including amaranth, breadfruit, matooke (mashed banana), posho (maize flour), groundnut sauce, spider weed, sukuma wiki (a leafy green), and a whole lot of other vegetables and fruits with names that I can neither remember nor pronounce.
One thing I haven't tried yet is found all over Africa and, in addition to being a food source, it is also considered a pest-grasshoppers. As I was walking through a market in Kampala, Uganda I noticed women "shelling" what I thought were beans, but upon closer inspection the baskets sitting between their legs were full of wriggling grasshoppers. As they sat, chatting with one another and the curious American, they were de-winging the insects so that they could be either sold "raw" or fried for customers.
Despite the yuck factor many of you reading this might have for eating insects, grasshoppers, crickets, termites, and other "bugs" can be a nutritious source of protein, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. According to the results from a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization workshop in 2008, caterpillars are an important source of food for many people in Central Africa, providing not only protein, but also potassium and iron.
Collecting and selling insects can also be an important source of income, especially for women in Africa. And as climate change increases the prevalence of certain insects, they become an even more important source of food in the future.
One thing you immediately notice upon meeting Edward Mukiibi and Roger Serunjogi is their passion for kids and agriculture. Their eyes both lit up whenever they talked about the students who are part of DISC, Developing Innovations in School Cultivation, a project they founded after graduating from Makere University in Kampala. When we met Edward, he had just gotten back from the World Food Summit in Rome, where he was representing Slow Food International's Youth Delegation. He works during the week at the Ugandan Organic Certification Company. Roger is a school teacher and administrator at Sunrise School, where DISC launched its pilot project in 2006.
Edward says that after fulfilling their goals of being able to go to university, he and Roger wanted to "help other people realize their dreams." And they wanted to spread their "passion for producing local foods to the next generation." By focusing on school gardens, Edward and Roger are helping not only feed children, but are also revitalizing an interest in--and cultivation of--African indigenous vegetables. The schools don't use any hybrid seeds, but rely on what is locally available. Students and teachers at DISC project schools are taught how to save seed from local varieties of amaranth, sumiwiki, maize, African eggplant, and other local crops to grow in school gardens. They learn how to both dry the seeds and how to store them for the next season. With support from Slow Food International, DISC is establishing a seed bank to, according to Edward, "preserve the world's best vegetables."
Improving nutrition is especially important for boarding school students, who eat all of their meals at school. These children come from all over Uganda and DISC tries to make them feel at home by growing varieties of crops that are familiar to them from both the lowlands and highlands. According to Edward, "a child needs to see what she's used to" in order to appreciate its importance.
At both day and boarding schools, students work with school chefs to learn how to cook foods--giving them the opportunity to understand food production literally from farm to table. And unlike most other schools in Uganda, DISC project schools get local fruits with their breakfast and can harvest their own desert at lunchtime. DISC is planning the "Year of Fruits" for the next school year, which begins in January or February depending on the school--each school will be planting its own fruit trees on campus.
Roger explained that in addition to the monkeys who live around Sunrise School and who like to eat some of the crops from their garden, the biggest challenges for DISC involve transportation and equipment for the schools. Because DISC doesn't have its own vehicle, the coordinators, who need to evaluate gardens and make sure that the children are actually getting the food they help grow, often have to scramble to find transportation. And they lack good ways for the schools to communicate with one another about disease outbreaks and other problems.
But as the project receives more interest--from teachers, students, parents, and policy-makers (the local extension officer for the National Agricultural Advisory Services is a member of the local Slow Food convivium)--and more funding, they're likely to overcome these challenges and make farming a more viable option for youth in Mikuni and other parts of Uganda.
Communities in transition throughout Africa are at a critical crossroads. Rapid technological change, rising population, and growing urbanization, along with the impact of climate change on the continent, present a number of challenges to communities. And unfortunately the development groups, aid agencies, and local governments do not make this easy.
Spend a week in a small settlement of pastoralists in Northern Kenya and the confusing realities of change become quite clear.
Day 1: Agricultural extension workers enter the community and hold workshops on how to make the shift from pastoralism to sedentary farming. They fence off a small plot of land that used to be grass, plow the soil and tear up the land, and plant tomatoes, corn, paw-paw trees, and cabbage. They leave the plot in the hands of the community as an example of what they might do and head home to the district capital. It has not rained here in over a year and the plants will surely die.
Day 2: An environmental committee has come to the settlement to talk about the importance of preserving trees on the mountains above the village to solve the water problem by allowing moisture to sink into the soil and recharge the rivers. At the meeting, under a large acacia tree, people nod their heads and talk about the importance of trees as they sip tea made with camel milk. A few young men from the committee are chosen as stewards to watch over the trees.
Day 3: A missionary from a nearby town comes to the settlement to solve the water problem in another way: he drills a borehole directly down into the water table that the preservation of the trees was meant to recharge. He does not notice the other three idle pumps nearby, former attempts to pull water out of the ground before they pulled it all out.
Day 4: A committee comes to talk about grazing management in the community and talking with the elders of the village they work on a plan for livestock management to regenerate and rest the rangelands so there will be a reserve of grass when the next dry season comes. They make an outline in the sand of which areas of the mountain will be closed to livestock during which months, and choose leaders to pass the information on to the community.
Day 5: A group trying to improve the lives of pastoralists by distributing livestock arrives. They hand out animals to people living in the grazing areas that the meeting the previous day just closed.
Day 6: A new development groups arrives and uses new participatory methods to try and figure out what the community wants and needs and how best they can help. During the middle of their discussion a relief truck full of bags of maize, tins of cooking oil, and sacks of beans arrives. Everyone gets up and leaves to collect the free food.
Day 7: No one comes to meetings today. As one old man explained, "It is too confusing. They want to know what we want, but they don't know what they want. I am going to see my cows."
Brendan Buzzard is a contributor to Nourishing the Planet. A writer and conservationist, he works and travels widely while focusing on the link between human prosperity and landscape integrity. He has a degree in Geography and Environment from Prescott College.
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I've had the opportunity to try some traditional-and tasty-local foods while I've been traveling in Africa, including amaranth, breadfruit, matooke (mashed banana), posho (maize flour), groundnut sauce, spider weed, sukuma wiki (a leafy green), and a whole lot of other vegetables and fruits with names that I can neither remember nor pronounce.
