A group of people, led by former U.S. representative and ambassador Tony Hall, are participating in a "hunger fast" to advocate for the nation's hungry and the federal programs that help them:
Ambassador Hall is fasting... in response to the proposed cuts to vital anti-hunger and anti-poverty programs: "We do need to cut the deficit and need to get our fiscal house in order. But not on the backs of the poor and hungry. They didn't get us into the current mess, and hurting them is not the way out of it."
Well said.
Others who are fasting include: Ritu Sharma, president of Women Thrive Worldwide; Reverend David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World; Jim Wallis, President and CEO of Sojourners; Ruth W. Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service; Pierre Ferrari, CEO of Heifer International; and prominent New York Times food Journalist and author Mark Bittman. Of that group, Bittman is the one I respect the most (mainly because I know him and I know he's for real). He wrote up a column called Why We're Fasting.
A group I am a member of, the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) has also signed onto this effort. They say:
The Community Food Security Coalition endorses this effort to draw attention to the impact of proposed federal budget cuts on low-income people. Slashing the social safety net in these fragile economic times would increase hunger and hardship, and cutting off investments in community-based solutions could derail the recovery and inhibit the development of self-reliant, sustainable communities and economies.
We think of deserts as dry wastelands incapable of food production. Surprisingly, there is often enough rainfall to support vegetation. The problem is that most of this water falls only over the course of one week and pools in aquifers a meter below the surface. A tree with a developed root system can survive from these aquifers, but seedlings need consistent moisture at the surface in order to fuel root growth toward these water sources. A week of rain simply isn't enough. And if you dig deep enough to reach the water table, you destroy the natural capillaries in the soil that act as a permeable boundary to support the seed and transfer water.
John and Joyce Wanda grew up in the villages of Bumwalukani and Bupoto in Eastern Uganda. In 1995 they came to the United States through a lottery visa and settled in Arlington, Virginia. After exposure to the Arlington public schools through their children, John and Joyce wanted to provide the same opportunities for the children growing up in their home villages. "Coming from the rural, poor village that I do, I understand what it is to feel like you can't help yourself to succeed," said John. "I wanted the children of my home to see what a good education is like and that they do have options."
At first the goal was just to provide an education. In 1999, they started donating tuition for five children in Uganda to attend school. Within a few years, that program had grown to 126 students and John and Joyce decided to build a school. And every year, notes John, another program is added to the project. "We realized that there was a real demand for education," said John. "Then we realized that kids couldn't learn when they were sick so we started the clinic. Kids can't learn when they are hungry either and so we started the farm."
At the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico, in December, the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Jacques Diouf, emphasized the need to promote what he called "climate smart" agriculture for food security and climate change adaptation. "By climate smart," he said, "we mean agriculture that sustainably increases productivity and resilience to environmental pressures, while at the same time reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or removes them from the atmosphere, because we cannot ignore the fact that agriculture is itself a large emitter of greenhouse gases."
You may not have heard of fonio, but it is Africa's oldest cereal. For the Dogon people of Mali, fonio is "the seed of the universe" - an appropriate name considering its high nutritional value, and adaptability to the region's soil and climate. From Lake Chad to the savannah regions of Senegal and Guinea, fonio is an important source of food for some 4 million people across West Africa.
It is one of the most nutritious of all grains. Fonio is rich in important amino acids - not found in wheat, rice, maize, or sorghum - such as methionine and cystine, which help synthesize protein. And its low sugar content makes fonio an ideal food for people with diabetes.
The plant can tolerate poor soils, which are often too infertile for other cereals, like sorghum and pearl millet. Given its adaptability, fonio is widely cultivated across the Fouta Djallon Plateau of Guinea, because it can grow on acidic soils with a high aluminum content that is harmful to other crops. And when low rainfall makes it difficult for farmers in Sierra Leone to grow rice in their paddies, they often turn to fonio to protect them from total crop failure.
Fonio is also among the world's fastest maturing cereals. Crops produce grains as quickly as 6 to 8 weeks after being planted, and are ready to be harvested long before most other grains. During Africa's hungry season, when farmers are waiting for other crops to mature, fonio becomes the "grain of life." It is this property that gives fonio its popular English name, "hungry rice." But people also grow fonio because they love how it tastes.
Black fonio, as well as the more popular white varieties, are characterized by very small seeds, which are an important ingredient in traditional dishes. When cooked, fonio has a consistency similar to couscous, and is served with a peanut sauce or chicken stew. It is also used to make porridge and gruel, and you can be sure to find fonio among the food served at religious and traditional ceremonies. The Lambas in northern Togo also brew a traditional beer (tchapalo) from white fonio. And the grain, chaff, and straw make excellent fodder for cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys. And if that's not enough, the straw can also be chopped and mixed with clay to build walls or burned to provide heat for cooking.
Unfortunately, although fonio's value is evident, it has not received much attention. Farmers speak of the need for better processing equipment that can help reduce labor, as well as the need to develop greater demand for the crop and better access to markets. As innovative efforts to preserve Africa's food security crop up across the continent, people are starting to focus on fonio.
In this week's episode, Nourishing the Planet research intern, Elena Davert, introduces a counter-intuitive method of cleaning water. In 2004 Peter Njodzeka founded the Life and Water Development Group Cameroon (LWDGC) with a rather simple goal. " I wanted to see the people in my area have clean water," he said. "And we kept expanding. That's how it started." Now, LWDGC, with support from Engineers without Borders (EWB) and Thirst Relief International, is teaching households how to use dirt and bacteria to clean their water, greatly improving the quality of drinking water and all but eliminating diseases caused by contaminated water.
In this regular video series, we bring you images, interviews and more in-depth information about different agricultural innovations. Get to know the NtP team and the innovations we are highlighting regularly, and stay tuned for more NtP TV in the coming weeks!
In this week's episode, Nourishing the Planet research intern, Abby Massey, discusses some of the projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa that are working to give farmers access to clean water for irrigation, washing and drinking. Access to even a little bit of clean water can greatly reduce illness and improve crop yields. With the right resources these projects could bring clean water to even more farmers. Much like water itself-a little of the right kind of funding could go a long way.
This is the second part in a two-part interview with Steve Osofsky, Director of Wildlife Health Policy for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). In this first part of the interview, Osofsky explains Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) and how small-scale farmers can benefit from the conservation of wildlife. To read the first part of this interview see: Finding Common Ground to Improve Livelihoods and Conserve Wildlife.
What role do Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) play in the relationship between wildlife and food systems?
Let me first just explain what TFCA's are. If you look back at the colonial era when many of the southern African colonies or protectorates were looking for economic traction- one of the obvious sources was the export of beef. And we talked about how foot and mouth disease, a virus that is naturally harbored by the African buffalo, is a constraint to exports. The Europeans don't want foot and mouth getting into their animals. It's happened-you may remember in the UK , the multi-billion dollar losses, the farmers committing suicide, when foot and mouth got in. And actually right now there is an outbreak coming to an end in Japan and they are still not sure where that virus came in from. But it's an economically important disease.
So from that context, going back to the late 1950's and early 1960's you can understand why fences were put up to separate wildlife and livestock. They were creating disease-free areas so that beef could be exported safely to markets like Europe which were providing good prices for many, many years. At that time, tourism was really not a major activity - there was some trophy hunting by the elite but it wasn't an economic driver.
In this regular series, crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet, we profile African indigenous crops that can improve food security and protect the environment.
The basic needs for human survival include food, water and shelter. Baobab, a tree indigenous to the semi arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa can provide all three, and more. Baobabs can be found in areas from the Senegal coast to northern South Africa, and Madagascar, where seven out of the eight species occur.
The baobab's leaves, fruit and seeds are all edible. In West African countries, including Ghana and Burkina Faso, leaves are commonly ground up and used in soups, and for condiments and sauces served with yam, cassava, maize, millet and sorghum. The leaves are high in protein and contain a wide spectrum of essential amino acids. They are high in lysine, which is often missing in the daily diets of poor populations who consume mostly cereals and tubers, and little meat. As these leaves are also high in vitamin A, frequent consumption should be encouraged in pregnant women and children as it can help prevent blindness and birth defects resulting from vitamin A deficiency.
This diary series covers my trip to the Mexican state of Jalisco to study the effects of NAFTA and the Green Revolution on subsistence farmers in rural areas. The trip began with a few days in Guadalajara, the largest city in the state. Then we headed to the rural town of Cuquio, about an hour and a half away, for the remainder of the trip. On the 11th day, we drove back to Guadalajara to spend our last day there. At breakfast, we discussed heading to one of the many agrochemical stores in Cuquio to check out the pesticides on our way out of town.
Recently, I had a piece up on Alternet called The Ploy to Promote Genetically Engineered Seeds and Pesticides to Poor Mexican Farmers Is Impoverishing Their Communities. Unlike my daily diaries of the trip, in this piece, I was more analytical about what I saw and what that means for the big picture of helping end hunger among subsistence farmers around the world. Specifically, I examined the Green Revolution technologies that are being pushed in the efforts for a Second Green Revolution.
This morning, I was pleased to see that Devinder Sharma linked to my piece on his blog. He added his own comments, with a damning editorial on the international push for another Green Revolution:
While the 2nd generation-environmental impacts of Green Revolution have played havoc with the natural resource base across continents, the destruction of the farm lands, and the plight of the dying farmers, is being hastily buried under the aggressive launch of the Second Green Revolution. To avoid the finger of suspicion pointing towards them, the international scientific community in collaboration with the agribusiness industry and the policy makers, are in a desperate hurry to create a smokescreen that hides the great tragedy.
I especially appreciated this line by him:
Those who promoted Green Revolution, it is now becoming clear, were not aware of the hidden design. The complete take over of agricultural research and education across the globe by the US land grant system came in handy to programme the scientific mindset. The USAID has to be admired the way it helped change the scientific brains to the virtues of the intensive farming systems as the only way forward.
This diary series covers my trip to the Mexican state of Jalisco to study the effects of NAFTA and the Green Revolution on subsistence farmers in rural areas. The trip began with a few days in Guadalajara, the largest city in the state. Then we headed to the rural town of Cuquio, about an hour and a half away, for the remainder of the trip. This diary is about our talk with a local microlending cooperative.
If reading about the people I've visited inspires you to help, you can donate to the Center for Farmworker Families. Every penny given goes directly to these families for clothes, shoes, food, school supplies, and more.
This is the third blog in a series about the increasing prevalence of large-scale land acquisitions, or land-grabs.
In April 2010, more than 120 farmers’ groups and non-governmental organizations all across the world signed a statement declaring their opposition to the guiding principles endorsed by the World Bank, the FAO, IFAD and UNCTAD on “responsible” land investments.
This diary series covers my trip to the Mexican state of Jalisco to study the effects of NAFTA and the Green Revolution on subsistence farmers in rural areas. The trip began with a few days in Guadalajara, the largest city in the state. Then we headed to the rural town of Cuquio, about an hour and a half away, for the remainder of the trip. On the 10th day, we visited our last village to deliver aid.
If reading about the people I've visited inspires you to help, you can donate to the Center for Farmworker Families. Every penny given goes directly to these families for clothes, shoes, food, school supplies, and more.
This diary series covers my trip to the Mexican state of Jalisco to study the effects of NAFTA and the Green Revolution on subsistence farmers in rural areas. The trip began with a few days in Guadalajara, the largest city in the state. Then we headed to the rural town of Cuquio, about an hour and a half away, for the remainder of the trip. On the 9th day, we had a painful reality check when we found out the family we were visiting was desperately poor and hungry.
If reading about the people I've visited inspires you to help, you can donate to the Center for Farmworker Families. Every penny given goes directly to these families for clothes, shoes, food, school supplies, and more.
