Nourishing the Planet

Dragon Fruit (photo credit:Serious Eats)

By Fred Bahnson

When government extension agents first came to Juan Bautista’s Yucatan village of Chun-Yah, a tiny pueblo in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, they told him he should start growing pitaya, also known as dragonfruit. Originating in Meso-America, this cactus is now cultivated in parts of Asia, Australia, and Israel. The fruit is tasty, the plant is easily propagated, and it thrives in places with long dry seasons like the Yucatan.

Bautista and other farmers in Chun-Yah followed the agronomists’ instructions, clear-cutting nearby forests and building elaborate trellis systems made of concrete and wire to support the vine-like pitaya. Soon after the project began, the funding to maintain those trellises disappeared. The agronomists were at a loss as to how pitaya could be grown otherwise, and they left Chun-Yah. That was 15 years ago.

Rather than give up on pitaya, which by now was their main cash crop, the farmers of Chun-Yah decided to grow it in their milpas, the traditional Mayan field.

I recently visited Juan Bautista in his milpa. Standing there in the shade of a mango tree, I realized that this was no ordinary farm field—it was an intensively managed forest garden, a food-producing ecosystem built in nature’s image.

In traditional Mayan agriculture, maize has been the milpa’s main crop. But numerous sister crops also provide balance to both the farmer’s diet and the milpa ecosystem itself: beans, squash, melons, chiles, medicinal plants, pineapple, trees for fruit and lumber, plus the myriad fauna that call the milpa their home.

So what did Juan Bautista and the farmers of Chun-Yah do differently once the agronomists left? They essentially exchanged concrete trellises for living ones.

Pitaya is an epiphyte, meaning that it pulls moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, and debris that collects on the host plant, on which it depends for structural support. Instead of clear-cutting forest to plant pitaya, the farmers cut trees selectively, leaving Mexican Cedar and other lumber-producing tree crops for later harvest. They then select the host trees on which pitaya will grow, cutting them at head height to allow for easy harvesting of the dragonfruit. The host trees remain alive, their roots holding soil in place while bringing up nutrients from the sub-soil. Regular pruning of the trees provides mulch for other crops. The farmers plant pitaya and other food crops into this living forest system—a well-planned, well-managed agro-ecological system.

There is no irrigation in Chun-Yah. Other than a little fertilizer for the host trees, the only input is the knowledge and labor of farmers who have created this forest ecosystem. Growing pitaya on the concrete trellises was fine, but the only crop produced was the pitaya. Growing pitaya in the polyculture of the milpa means that Juan Bautista gets his cash crop plus all the benefits the milpa brings, with little drop in yield.

There are three main pitaya harvests between June and October. Through the Chun-Yah cooperative, Bautista sells his fruit locally in Quintana Roo. On his three hectares he harvests around 12 tons of dragonfruit per year. At $1/kilo, he’s earning $12,000 annually, almost double Mexico’s median annual household income of $7,297. And all that food coming from his milpa means a lower grocery bill than most city dwellers.

Thanks to their ingenuity, the farmers of Chun-Yah haven’t had to leave their farms to work in el norte, and they are able to live comfortably on several hectares each.

And those agronomists who left 15 years ago? They have returned to learn how to grow pitaya from the farmers of Chun-Yah. Which is proof that these Mayan villages and their ancient agricultural arts are not just vestiges of a lost way of life; they are crucial models that could teach us “moderns” how to farm in ways that work with, not in spite of, our surrounding ecosystems.

Fred Bahnson traveling as a Kellogg Food & Society fellow at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. His writing has appeared in Orion, The Sun, and Best American Spiritual Writing 2007 (Mariner). He lives with his wife and two sons on a farm in Transylvania County, North Carolina.

Caterpillars (seen here being sold by a street vendor in Uganda) are an important source of food for many people in Central Africa, providing not only protein, but also potassium and iron. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

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.

By Abby Massey

Over the last few years, China, India, and the Middle East have invested heavily in African land, spurred on by the global food and economic crises—as well as the threats of climate change, population growth, and water scarcity. By controlling agricultural land in Kenya, Ethiopia, and elsewhere on the continent, these nations hope to secure future food supplies for their populations, even as sub-Saharan Africa faces increasing hunger. At least 23 million people are currently at risk for starvation in the Horn of Africa. And this increasing foreign investment in African land has largely remained under the global radar. In addition, the push for alternative energy sources is driving investors to purchase land for energy crops, like corn and sugar cane, which can be used to produce biofuels instead of food.

Some experts argue that “land grabbing” or the investment in foreign soil is progress for agriculture, by bringing development and big agriculture to impoverished countries through the introduction of new technologies and jobs. But, as the article, The Great Land Grab, co-authored by Nourishing the Planet Advisory Group member Anuradha Mittal, explains, “corporate agribusiness has been known to establish itself in developing countries with the effect of either driving independent farmers off their land or metabolizing farm operation so that farmers become a class of workers within the plantation.”

Land grabs can come at a great cost to local farmers and communities. In Pakistan, for example, the United Arab Emirates purchased 324,000 hectares of land in the Punjab province. According to a local farmer’s movement, this purchase will displace an estimated 25,000 villagers in the province, where 94 percent of the people are subsistence farmers only utilizing about 2 hectares of land each. Because of these “land grabs,”not only are farmers removed from land, but the local economy also suffers.  Many hunger-stricken countries, such as Sudan and Kenya, will have to import foods that were once grown locally.

Abby Massey is a Food and Agriculture Intern with the Nourishing the Planet project.

By Abby Massey

In the midst of climate negotiations in Copenhagen, twelve countries (including agricultural powerhouses India and the United States) may form a coalition, proposed by New Zealand, to encourage farming practices that can combat climate change.  Although supportive of enlisting farmers and food businesses to help mitigate climate change, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) expressed concern that the newly formed Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, and the resulting research, will “simply duplicate the pitfalls we’ve already seen within the U.S. agriculture research agenda.” In a press release from December 16th, IATP urged that the new alliance include participation from farmers in countries hardest hit by climate change and the resulting food insecurity.

Other attendees in Copenhagen share this sentiment. “Countries should exploit the synergies between combating climate change and fighting against hunger,” said Professor Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and Nourishing the Planet Advisory Group Member, in a press release of his own on the 16th.  He, along with nineteen other UN human rights experts, emphasizes that a “weak outcome of the climate change negotiations threatens to infringe upon human rights” by contributing global food insecurity.

Press Release:

December 16, 2009

New agriculture research alliance on climate should focus on low input, sustainable farming

Research can’t continue unsustainable, business-as-usual model for agriculture

Copenhagen – A new global research alliance, led by New Zealand and the U.S., on agriculture and climate change should include participation from farmers in countries facing food insecurity and emphasize practices that are low-cost and ready for immediate application, said the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) today.

The Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases was announced today in Copenhagen at the global climate talks. The proposal was initially made by New Zealand, but has now added the U.S. and over a dozen other countries including Denmark, India, Japan and Uruguay. The alliance agrees to boost funding within the participant countries to focus on “improving management practices and technologies” to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and support food security.

“We are concerned that this agenda will simply duplicate the pitfalls we’ve already seen within the U.S. agriculture research agenda, which for example spends billions of dollars on genetically engineered seeds that largely benefit transnational corporations and can take a decade to develop.” said Jim Harkness, President of IATP. “This new alliance recognizes food security within the framework of climate research, and that should be applauded. To truly support food security requires developing research in-country, based on local experience and indigenous knowledge.”

“The loss of traditional knowledge and seed varieties in the Global South is a much more urgent crisis, and much more crippling to the world’s capacity to address climate change, than what has been the traditional U.S. research model,” said Harkness. “Unfortunately, national research institutions have largely ignored the types of low-input, sustainable, small-scale systems that are needed for both food security and climate-friendly farming.”

A recent global agricultural assessment, modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change process, emphasized the need to stop business-as-usual in agriculture, stressed the importance of multidisciplinary research, the participation of farmers, and greater support of traditional knowledge in food production. That global report, known as the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), also identifies key research gaps.

“We think the IAASTD really provides a roadmap for addressing climate change and food security,” said Harkness. “Further research should build upon the IAASTD, whose recommendations can be implemented tomorrow—not a decade from now.”

IATP is in Copenhagen following agriculture aspects of the global climate talks. You can read more about IATP’s work on agriculture and climate at: www.iatp.org/climate.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems. www.iatp.org

M.S. Swaminathan warns against inaction in response to Climate Change (photo credit: Ben Block)

By Ben Block

The agricultural innovations advocated by plant geneticist M S Swaminathan led to the Green Revolution four decades ago. This questioning scientist, whose foundation and research institute is based in Chennai, India, does not shy from self-criticism: The intense use of fertilizers and heavy dependence on irrigation that allowed Indian farmers to double and triple their wheat and rice yields in the late 1960s had involved a sort of “mining,” Swaminathan has said, which he and colleagues never intended to encourage over the longterm.

A leader in the field of sustainable food security, whom the UN Environment Programme has dubbed “the father of economic ecology,” is still innovating today. During a speech at Agriculture and Rural Development Day, held in Copenhagen on Saturday, Swaminathan encouraged participants to think broadly about potential agricultural technologies and approaches that would ensure greater food production despite the droughts, floods, and overall weather uncertainty that will accompany climate change.

Swaminathan’s suggestions included:

-        Incentives that maximize the carbon sequestration potential of farmland (“carbon banks”) through agroforestry and soil;

-        Research into agriculture at sea level for farmers at risk by sea-level rise;

-        Develop groundwater sanctuaries that harvest and store rainwater during heavy rains for times of water scarcity;

-         Integrated governmental approaches that gather local expertise on climate, disaster response, agriculture, water services, etc and disseminate relevant information to farmers through mobile phone messages; and

-        Recognition that women will be more adversely affected by climate change, especially in areas where women bear greater agricultural burdens.

Most importantly, Swaminathan stressed the need to reduce greenhouse gases rapidly. “The consequence of inaction will be human suffering,” he said.

Making metal silos for grain storage (photo credit: FAO)

In some parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 265 million people are hungry, more than a quarter of the food produced is going bad even before it can be eaten because of poor harvest or storage techniques, severe weather, or disease and pests. In the United States on the other hand, food is actually being thrown away by the billions of kilograms (and contributing to 12 percent of total waste), putting stress on already bursting landfills and contributing to the emission of greenhouse gases—in the U.S. landfills are one of the biggest sources of methane, accounting for 34% of all methane emissions.

To prevent the loss of crops after they are harvested in Africa and elsewhere, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is implementing education and technology providing projects. In Kenya , the FAO partnered with the Kenya Ministry of Agriculture to train farmers to take steps to reduce maize crop loss to mycotoxin, a devastating result of fungi growth.

And in Afghanistan, the FAO recently provided household metallic silos to roughly 18,000 households in order to improve post-harvest storage. Farmers use the silos to store cereal grains and legumes, protecting them from the weather and pests, and post-harvest losses dropped from between 15 and 20 percent to less than one or two percent.

Recognizing the need to protect harvest in Africa from weather, disease, pests, and poor storage quality, the African Ministerial Council on Science & Technology is promoting research to analyze and promote various technologies and techniques to prevent post harvest waste and improve food processing. And ECHO Farm, in the United States, where Danielle and I spent some time in August, collects innovations of all kinds to help farmers at all stages of cultivation, including after the harvest. Making these innovations accessible to farmers all over the world is ECHO’s mission and we were able to see a demonstration of a number of post-harvest loss prevention techniques that are both simple and affordable.

And progress in waste reduction is being made in the United States, as well. This year San Francisco became the first U.S. city to mandate that all households separate both recycling and compost from garbage. The Department of the Environment expects this single piece of legislation will result in a 90 percent decrease of household waste in local landfills.

Food collection organizations like Urban Harvest collect food from restaurants, grocery stores and cafeterias that would otherwise be thrown away and deliver it, free of charge, to local food providers for low income families and the homeless.

Minimizing greenhouse gas emissions is a central theme at the climate negotiations in Copenhagen this year as GHG concentrations reached a record high last year. With landfills producing large amounts of greenhouse gases, and as food prices continue to rise worldwide, the reduction of food waste is an inescapable necessity for people everywhere, from restaurant owners in New York City to maize farmers outside Nairobi, Kenya.

(photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

By Brendan Buzzard

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.

As negotiators head to Copenhagen this week, an article in The Nation highlights something we rarely hear about–how small farmers all over Africa are already adapting to more erratic weather events and higher temperatures. Through agroforestry practices that integrate trees into crop rotations, farmers are improving soil, conserving water, increasing yields, and sequestering carbon, making farms more resilient as the effects of climate change become more evident (see blog posts here and here for more on agroforestry). These practices are another reminder that curbing climate change is not only something farmers will benefit from, but also something that will benefit greatly from small farmers, themselves.

Danielle (center) with Elizabeth Katushabe (left), Project Officer for PENHA and her colleague, Mary Louise Massuma. (photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

Uganda, like Tanzania and Kenya, has a rich history of pastoralism. For centuries, nomadic herders have bred and raised cattle to withstand the region’s high temperatures and low rainfall. But because of expanding wildlife areas and national parks for wildlife conservation and tourism, and an effort to “modernize,”  pastoralists—and the indigenous breeds of cattle they raise—are in danger of going extinct.” In fact, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that almost one breed of cattle goes extinct every month. In Uganda, the population of Ankole cattle—which is resistant to disease and can withstand high temperatures—is declining rapidly as livestock keepers switch to more exotic breeds.

But the Pastoral and Environmental Network in the Horn of Africa (PENHA) is trying to “bridge the gap between policy-makers and pastoralists,” says Elizabeth Katushabe, a program officer with PENHA. She says that often the government has been “biased” against nomadic pastoralists. Although many political leaders come from pastoralist communities, many are supporting policies that drive herders and livestock keepers off the land. But Ms. Katushabe says by holding meetings and workshops with Parliamentary leaders and pastoralists, PENHA is “trying to put it into their [policy makers] hearts to protect pastoralists.” And their efforts are paying off.

Although the government has encouraged livestock keepers to raise Freesian cattle because they produce more milk, they’ve also worked with the Ankole Cow Conservation Association, through the Ugandan Wildlife Authority, to allow some herders to bring Ankole cattle into national parks to graze, helping conserve and protect the cattle as well as the livestock keepers’ way of life.

But it’s not only government leaders that PENHA has to convince. They also have to persuade poverty-stricken herding communities that herding can be profitable. Ms. Katushabe says “poverty is PENHA’s biggest challenge.” These communities think that the only way to make money is to adopt exotic breeds of cattle, but PENHA is helping to change that attitude by building a market for indigenous breeds. PENHA is hoping to start radio programs that will educate herders and consumers alike about the nutritional qualities of the meat and milk from indigenous breeds, including leaner meat and milk with higher butter content.

In addition, PENHA emphasizes the role herders can play in protecting the environment—their rotational grazing practices can help protect wildlife, sequester carbon in soils, and preserve biodiversity.

PENHA is also working to mobilize women’s groups. Most women aren’t allowed to own their own livestock, but PENHA is training women to raise goats, which men don’t think are important. The goats provide not only food and milk, but an important source of income and empowerment to women.

By giving livestock keepers a voice, PENHA is helping ensure that indigenous breeds of cattle and the pastoralist way of life don’t go extinct.

"Vertical gardens:" a version of a micro garden being used in Kibera, Kenya to grow vegetables.

For the past few months, we’ve been collecting information about agricultural innovations from all over the world (survey in English and French). We shared the initial responses in September but continue to receive interesting information and recommendations from farmers, NGOs, research groups, and policymakers in a multitude of countries. Below are a few tidbits we’d like to share:

From our friends at the World Vegetable Center in Arusha, Tanzania, which Danielle plans to visit later this month: “The world currently depends on a few exotic vegetable species such as tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, cauliflower, etc., and yet hundreds of other species of indigenous vegetables exist but are not properly exploited. In many cases they are much more nutrient-dense than the common exotics, which is of substantive importance in areas in which malnutrition — both under-nutrition and obesity — are serious problems. The difficulty at present resides in the fact that seed of such species are difficult to get, breeding programs are rare or absent, and the supporting agronomic research to maximize their quality and performance has not received sufficient investment.

This innovation needs both a change in policy environment by governments and other supporters of agricultural research to embrace a much greater investment in crop diversity rather than relying on funding only a few staple crops…. [T]he introduction of improved indigenous vegetables has a considerable chance of not only allowing farmers to grow and market themselves out of poverty but also to ensure that the poor, vulnerable, and disadvantaged and their families have a much better chance of attaining a sensible balanced diet than at present.”

From a member of our Advisory Group in Senegal: “The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) introduced the Micro Gardens in Senegal. Rodale International was contracted to train women and implement micro gardens in neighborhoods in Thies. The practice rapidly spread in Thies and other cities. A medical doctor from the Fann Hospital in Dakar established a micro garden and is now feeding his patients and monitoring its impact on their health and recovery.”

From the International Rural Poultry Centre and Kyeema Foundation in Mozambique: “Mortality due to Newcastle Disease (ND) is a major constraint to village chicken production and, consequently, impacts on household food security and livelihood…. With support from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the European Union, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the FAO, the International Rural Poultry Centre is supporting veterinary laboratories to produce quality vaccine and veterinary services [and] local NGOs and communities to implement ND vaccination campaigns…. Impact studies have demonstrated a significant increase in village chicken flock size, and poultry consumption and sale in participating households. As women and children are frequently the owners and carers of village chickens, they benefit directly from the vaccination program. Increased village chicken production also contributes to wildlife conservation and HIV/AIDS mitigation.”

From Premier Organic Farms Corporation in the United States: “Premier’s Pod Unit is a Closed-Loop Food Tilapia Fish RAS (recirculation aquaculture system) that provides a nutrient source to grow a Vegetables & Food Production greenhouse system, which in turn filters water through root uptake; it then re-cycles purified water back into fish tanks for re-use. Rainfall is harvested to conserve water and reduce system water requirements. The Pod Unit is designed to grow organic vegetables and foodstuffs based on regional needs. The system uses approx. 70% less water than a conventional farming system, with subsequent water conservation accumulation each time the water is filtered and re-cycled through the system. The fish produce nitrogen-rich water used as the nutrient and water source for growing vegetables; the vegetable root system filters the nitrogen out of the water creating a symbiotic relationship between the two growing segments. Methane gas biofuels from excess fish effluent can be used to produce electricity to operate the system. The system is also designed for adaptation for use with solar and wind power, or can use downstream scrubbed/filtered waste energy from power plants in the form of steam and water.”

From Martindale Farm in Zambia: “Holistic Management (started by Allen Savory) came about to deal with environmental degradation but has potential to reverse global warming as well. It has been most applicable to grazing land but the principles can be applied to anything successfully.”

From Rainbow Sustainable Solutions in the Netherlands: “[One practice is] turning coconut waste into added-value products like cattle feed, fish feed, and fertilizers. Continuing R&D in the Netherlands includes the establishment of a certification system. Through a fermentation process, coconut waste is turned into cattle feed and fish feed, which makes it possible to set up cattle farms and aquaculture in coconut regions.”

Stay tuned for more updates from the survey, and please fill it out or pass it on to others who might be interested!