Nourishing the Planet

Drip irrigation system in Nepal. (Photo credit: IDE)

After Elizabeth Samhembere’s husband passed away in 2004, she struggled to feed her family. A small-scale farmer in Zimbabwe, Elizabeth had trouble getting water to her crops, and her children were too young to help with the labor-intensive task of irrigating the vegetables and strawberries she grew.

“I was making a paltry Z$80,000 (US$0.81) per week from selling small and miserable-looking strawberries, and that did not improve my livelihood,” Elizabeth explained in an interview for International Development Enterprises (IDE). “I continued living from hand to mouth.”

But Elizabeth’s crop—and income—improved significantly in 2005, when she received a donated drip kit, seed, and fertilizer through the Micro Irrigation Partnerships for Vulnerable Households project (MIPVH) of IDE, an organization working to alleviate poverty and hunger in Asia and Africa through technology and market access for small farmers.

Drip irrigation delivers water and fertilizer directly to the roots of plants through systems of plastic tubing with small holes and other restrictive outlets. By distributing these inputs slowly and regularly, drip irrigation conserves up to 50 percent more water than traditional methods, IDE estimates.  The water and fertilizer are also more easily absorbed by the soil and plants, reducing the risks of erosion and nutrient depletion. Usually operated by gravity, drip irrigation saves both the time and labor that would otherwise be needed to water crops, leading to larger harvest yields.

Since installing her own drip kit, Elizabeth has seen her income rise to between Z$1 million (US$10) and Z$4 million (US$40) per week. Both the quality and quantity of her strawberry harvest have improved, and she was able to expand her crop diversity by adding peas, carrots, and tomatoes to her garden. With training from the Zimbabwe Women’s Bureau, Elizabeth is also generating income by selling jam she makes from her strawberries.

Elizabeth’s family is eating better, both from the garden and because of the profit she makes from selling her produce. And she no longer worries about going into debt or needing to borrow money to make ends meet. “I am able to send my children to school with the income I now generate from the garden,” she said.

To learn about other ways that irrigation technologies are helping small-scale farmers improve their incomes and livelihoods, see Getting Water to Crops and Access to Water Improves Quality of Life for Women and Children.

Multiple Use Water System in Nepal. (Photo: IDE)

In sub-Saharan Africa, improved access to water means more than simply basic survival for families dependent on agriculture for both food and income. It means the difference between barely scraping by and eating balanced meals, affording education, and owning a home.

In Zambia, the majority of children drop out of school by the seventh grade because their families can no longer afford it. But Peter Chakanyuka and his wife are able to pay “school fees every three months for our six children,” thanks to a treadle pump the family purchased with the help of International Development Enterprises (IDE), an organization working to improve the livelihoods of farmers in Asia and Africa through improved agricultural technology and market access. “Our life is much better and we eat more food variety than before,” says Mrs. Chakanyuka. (See also: Innovation of the Week: Getting Water to Crops)

In Nepal, IDE found that installing Multiple Use Water Systems (MUS) reduced the labor needed for water collection, improved sanitation, and empowered women. The systems collect water from springs and deliver it downhill using gravity to a domestic water tank and separate irrigation tank. The tanks provide a consistent source for water for drinking, cooking, and bathing, as well as a shared water source for irrigation.

As in many sub-Saharan Africa countries, in Nepal the task of gathering water usually falls to women, and the reduced labor needed for water gathering has allowed women to become more involved in the business side of a community’s agriculture effort. Increased crop production and diversity have also improved household diets, ensuring that women and children are eating more vegetables.

Veronica Sianchenga, a farmer living in Kabuyu Village in Zambia, saw similar improvements to her family’s quality of life when she began irrigating her farm with the “Mosi-o-Tunya” (Pump that Thunders), a pressure pump that she purchased through IDE. The pump is manufactured in Zambia, creating local jobs and keeping the technology affordable for small-scale farmers. The Mosi-o-Tunya is lightweight and easily operated by both men and women and transported by foot or bike.

Explaining that her children are eating healthier, with more vegetables in their diet, Mrs. Sianchenga adds that she is also enjoying increased independence. “Now we are not relying only on our husbands, because we are now able to do our own projects and to assist our husbands, to make our families look better, eat better, clothe better—even to have a house.”

PICS protect cowpeas throughout the year, preventing contamination from oxygen and pests. (Photo credit: Purdue University)

Cow peas are an important staple in Western Africa, providing protein to millions of people. Unlike maize, cow peas are indigenous to the region and have adapted to local growing conditions, making them an ideal source of food.

Making sure that the crops make it from the field to farmers’ bowls (or bols), however, is a real challenge in Niger and other countries (see Innovation of the Week: Reducing Food Waste). Cow peas only grow a few months a year and storing large amounts of the crop can be difficult because of pests. But that’s changing, thanks to a storage bag developed by Purdue University. The bags, called Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage, or PICS, are hermetically sealed, preventing oxygen and pests from contaminating the cowpeas. According to Purdue President Martin C. Jischke, “The method is simple, safe, inexpensive and very effective, which means that getting the right information to these people will reap tremendous benefits.”

With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the PICS project hopes to reach 28,000 villages in not only Niger, but Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Chad, and Togo by 2011. And while many farmers are at first skeptical the large storage bags will protect cow peas throughout the year, seeing is believing— in each village bags are filled with cowpeas and then 4 to 6 months later PICS has an Open-the-Bag event, allowing the farmers to see that the cowpeas are undamaged and ready-to-eat. In addition to protecting the cowpea from pests, the PICS bags also save farmers money on expensive pesticides.

Stay tuned for more on PICS bags when we head to Western Africa in a few months.

By Abby Massey

Sylvia Banda started Sylva Professional Catering Services Limited in 1986, even though just 30 years ago women weren’t allowed to own businesses—or even eligible for loans—in Zambia. She began her business by serving people food she cooked and brought from home on what she calls, a “standing buffet,” because she didn’t have enough money for tables and chairs.

Not having furniture didn’t stop Sylvia’s business from taking off; she made almost a hundred dollars after a few days. And with her husband listed as the proprietor of her business because land rights are limited if not inaccessible to women in Zambia, Sylvia was able to grow her small “standing buffet” into three subsidiary businesses.

Sylva Professional Catering Services Limited is dedicated to creating, selling and serving nutritious foods, made from indigenous and traditional products that are purchased from local farmers and merchants. Sylvia provides work for 73 people and has developed partnerships with local development organizations, using her financial and popular success to become a proponent of farmer and employee training. She calls it “economic emancipation.”   

Sylvia’s success has benefited not just her own family, but the wider community as well. And Winrock International, an organization that collects examples of projects focused on sustainable food, improving livelihoods and preserving local food traditions, hopes to extend her positive impact even further still by making her case study available as a resource and model for potential entrepreneurs—and for policy makers and NGOs who support potential entrepreneurs—around the world.

For more information about Sylvia’s work and other projects that are focusing on sustainable food, improving livelihoods and preserving local food traditions, see Winrock International’s site on Community Food Enterprises.

Abby Massey is a Food & Agriculture intern with the Nourishing the Planet Project.

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.

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.

In Tanzania, a trainer demonstrates the use of a Brazilian-made direct seeder (photo credit: FAO)

By Abby Massey

In agriculture, sometimes less is more, especially when it comes to soil quality. Monoculture crops—such as corn and soybeans—rely heavily on tractors for tilling the soil. And while these practices have raised yields over the last sixty years, they’ve also done a lot of damage to soils. Over turning dirt can lead to dryness and erosion, expediting the loss of nutrients in the soil that crops need to thrive.

Zero tillage, on the other hand, helps retain moisture, prevent erosion, and conserve nutrients.  The soil is covered with plant remains from the previous season’s crops or any additional organic matter such as animal dung. And seeds are planted in untilled soil in drilled holes or narrow ditches.

In Argentina, according to IFPRI’s Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development, it is estimated that the use of zero tillage in soybean cultivation has lead to a total gain of $4.7 billion dollars since 1991. In addition, in the years between 1993 and 1999, zero tillage farming led to the creation of 200,000 farming and extension related jobs.

In the Indo-Gangetic plains in Northeastern India, rice-wheat cultivation increased as a result of technological development of zero tillage drills. In the 1990s, a drill for creating holes in untilled soil was developed, and distributed at a low cost. The affordability and accessibility of the technology led to the widespread use of the technique in the area. Today zero or reduced tilling makes up one fifth to one fourth of wheat production there. According to Millions Fed, studies show that farmers could increase incomes by $97 per hectare of land because of improved production and a cut in the cost and time that goes into soil preparation.

According to a 2004 study from FAO and IFAD farmers in Tanzania, using tools made specifically for zero tillage agriculture saved 75 percent of the time usually spent on clearing land and preparing the fields. And elsewhere in Eastern Africa, the FAO partnering with the African Conservation Tillage Network, is helping implement a three-year conservation agriculture project, reaching 4,000 farmers in Kenya and Tanzania. Through the project, farmers in Africa will be connected to farmers in Brazil to gain education and extension directly from those who have already benefited from this “less is more” method of planting.

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

Milk stored in plastic bags sealed with candlewax to sell at the market.

By Abby Massey

As we’ve seen throughout Danielle’s travels, livestock is an important source of food, income, and culture for many people in sub-Saharan Africa. Livestock can also be a means of preserving local genetic diversity and a defense against climate change (see The Keepers of Genetic Diversity, Maintaining Links to Tradition in a Changing World.)

In Kenya, for example, the dairy sector alone accounts for 14 percent of the agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and smallholder farmers account for 80 percent of total marketed milk—making the ability to process dairy an essential defense against losing money on spoiled milk. Additionally, processing milk ensures access to its nutritional benefits while also reducing the risks of food borne illness.

Though it’s a top commodity, milk’s journey to the market is not an easy one, especially when the market is hours away, as most are in sub Saharan Africa. Unpasteurized milk can easily spoil by the time it gets to market, so pasteurization, which requires the milk to be heated to a specific pointthereby killing pathogenic bacteria, is key. Reducing the number of harmful bacteria means that it won’t spoil as fast, allowing for milk to make it to the market unspoiled—increasing income and consumer base.

In Nairobi, Kenya, Danielle Nierenberg met a farmer, Margaret Njeri Ndimu, who is seeing an increase in her income by selling her goats milk in plastic bags sealed with candlewax. She learned this process through a training program provided by the Mazingira Institute. This very simple means of processing her product makes it easier to manage and sell, allowing her customers to purchase small quantities of the perishable milk in portable containers.

According to Innovations for Agricultural Value Chains in Africa produced by the Meridian Institute, unpasteurized milk is more popular with consumers than pasteurized milk because of the significant cost difference. And many farmers couldn’t afford to pasteurize their milk, or even have access to facilities that could pasteurize their milk, even if they had a consumer base that could afford to purchase it.

A project implemented by the FAO and WHO promotes the use of the lactoperoxidase system (LP-s)—where an anti-bacterial compound is mixed into unpasteurized milk, allowing farmers to keep it safe for longer periods of time. With the application of the use LP-s, milk will last 5-6 days in refrigeration (+4°C or +39°F) and up to 4-7 hours at high temperatures (from 31 to 35°C or 87.8 to 95°F), allowing the farmer time to transport milk to market.

An East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) project also recognizes the benefits farmers see when they gain access to improved processing and preservation of their dairy. It encourages farmers to join cooperatives (See Innovation of the Week: Farmers Groups and Cooperatives) so that instead of processing the milk alone, farmers can turn to group owned and run refrigerated milk collection centers, significantly reducing the financial burden of the process. The milk is then transported to a milk processing facility and sent to market. EADD has projects in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda that not only provide help with processing, but also training and extension.

Proper milk processing is not only important for health reasons; finding ways to preserve a product as perishable as milk makes it more marketable and increases income, improving the livelihoods for smallholder dairy farmers and their families.

Abby Massey is a Food & Agriculture intern with Nourishing the Planet.