Nourishing the Planet

“Meet the Nourishing the Planet Advisory Group” is a 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.

Shayna Bailey, Director of International Development for Slow Food International and Advisor to the Nourishing the Planet Project.

Name: Shayna Bailey
Affiliation: Slow Food International
Location: Bra, Italy

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.

In Malawi, Stacia and Kristof Nordin's composting toilet fertilizes their crops. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

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.”

As the Worldwatch Institute prepares for our upcoming publication State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, we’re looking for original photo submissions of innovative farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

We want State of the World to reflect as many African voices as possible—as chapter authors, as vignette creators, and now even as photographers! Please submit your photos to dnierenberg@worldwatch.org. We will include as many as possible in the book, highlighting innovations across the continent that are helping to alleviate hunger and poverty in a sustainable way.

We will review all of your submissions, but ideally the resolution should be 300 dpi, so that means the file should be around 2175 pixels by 3000 pixels.

Danielle Nierenberg (right) with Jan Nijhoff, Coordinator with COMESA and Michigan State University. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

This is the second in a two-part series about my visit with Jan Nijhoff, who works with the Common Market for Eastern and South Africa (COMESA) and Michigan State University in Lusaka, Zambia.

According to Jan Nijhoff, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) “was born” as a result of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—the list of broad targets that the United Nations hopes developing nations will achieve by 2015. Nijhoff, who coordinates a project between Michigan State University and countries in eastern and southern Africa to promote regional trade, says CAADP was a response by COMESA (the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) to develop a program to “solve” the problems outlined in the MDGs.

The initiative is focused especially on MDG #1, the goal of halving both the number of people who earn less than a dollar a day and the number of hungry people worldwide by 2015.

CAADP works on four main pillars or programs: extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems; improving rural infrastructure and trade-related capacities for market access; increasing food supply, reducing hunger, and improving responses to food emergency crises; and improving agriculture research and technology dissemination and adoption.

But achieving these goals (and MDG #1) will require increasing agricultural growth across Africa by 6 percent per year, according to CAADP. To do that, African governments will need to spend 10 percent of their annual budgets on agricultural development—up from only around 5 percent currently.

The “beauty of the CAADP approach,” Nijhoff says, “is that it holds governments accountable” through agreements, or compacts, that they develop with COMESA. These compacts, which outline extensive government actions, can help countries achieve greater agricultural growth while also protecting the environment. Essentially, Nijhoff says, they are “game plans” that specify where a country needs to spend its resources, where donors and the private sector can play a role, and what policies need to be in place before an investment can happen. They can include actions like building more roads to reduce transport costs for farmers and other businesses.

COMESA has also launched a regional compact initiative with FANRPAN (which I’ll be writing about in future blogs) and other partners to identify interventions that are already common among member states, as well as activities that can have a regional impact.

By focusing on national and regional economic development, and by showing donors where to spend their money, both COMESA and CAADP hope to increase food security, improve livelihoods, and achieve the MDGs for millions of people in eastern and southern Africa. And although skeptics of the program claim that it’s “donor pushed,” Nijhoff says it should be viewed as “African led” because agriculture and trade ministers are working in collaboration with CAADP to develop policies.

What do you think?

(Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

Download and check out our updated Nourishing the Planet project powerpoint presentation on the Worldwatch Institute website here.  Now with audio narration by project co-director Danielle Nierenberg, the presentation outlines the current state of global hunger and poverty and the goals of the Nourishing the Planet project. It also includes some successful and environmentally sustainable agriculture innovations which will be featured in State of the World 2011: Nourishing the Planet.

“Meet the Nourishing the Planet Advisory Group” is a regular series where we profile advisors of the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we’re featuring Alan Duncan, who is a livestock scientist with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

Alan Duncan (right) with Danielle Nierenberg at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

Name: Alan Duncan

Affiliation: International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Bio: Alan Duncan is a livestock scientist with ILRI. His current research focuses on fodder innovation in smallholder livestock systems. He currently leads the IFAD-funded Fodder Adoption Project, a research-for-development project looking into feed scarcity in smallholder systems, with a particular emphasis on institutional blockages to change. The project has been experimenting with local innovation platforms as a way of enhancing the capacity of local actors (government line departments, researchers, private sector, NGOs) to work together more effectively to enhance feed availability at the farm level. The project takes a systems perspective to the feed-scarcity problem, considering, for example the role of markets for livestock products as a stimulus to innovation at the farm level.

On NtP: Nourishing the Planet is a welcome initiative from Worldwatch. I’ve watched with interest as various local innovations have been uncovered during Danielle’s travels in Africa. I’ll continue to follow this initiative to see whether some common threads can be drawn out from the successful innovations she has found so that some lessons can be developed for the wider agricultural community about what makes innovation happen.

What are some of the obstacles that smallholder livestock farmers face? Here in Ethiopia a major issue is the predominantly subsistence nature of agriculture. At some stage in the coming years, the millions of subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa will somehow need to transition to a more market-oriented mode of operation—the current resources simply can’t support business as usual. In my view, we already know enough about the technical fixes in smallholder agriculture. The trick is to find ways of opening up markets for smallholders to allow a transition into more market-oriented production.

Livestock production is often associated with climate change and other negative environmental impacts. Can you discuss how small-scale livestock farming can benefit farmers, the economy, and the environment? It’s certainly true that livestock have had some bad press recently. Unfortunately the blanket condemnation of livestock as “polluters of the planet” misses the nuances of differences between livestock’s role in the rich North and the poor South. Limiting intensive livestock production which oversupplies protein to those in developed countries is probably good for the planet. But in places like Ethiopia, livestock are a crucial element of poor people’s livelihoods and their nutrition. They utilize byproducts of cereal production (straw) and turn them into high-quality protein (meat and milk) for hungry people. They also serve as a source of security in marginal environments, acting as a buffer against disaster in drought-prone environments. Reducing livestock numbers in Africa would have a relatively minor effect on global GHG emissions but would have many negative consequences for the world’s poorest. There is a good argument for intensifying livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa since this would have the dual benefit of enhancing income for smallholders and reducing emissions per unit of livestock product. But this will take time and we need to find ways of supporting this transition by accelerating innovation in smallholder systems.

What sorts of innovations, policies, etc. would you like to see implemented to reduce global poverty and hunger? Why should food consumers in the United States care about the state of agriculture in other countries? I think we need less emphasis on pushing technologies on smallholder farmers and more emphasis on creating an “enabling environment for innovation.” What does this mean in practice? It means building capacity of the existing actors: the extension and research systems, the private sector, civil society bodies, etc., to think at the system level, to adopt more participatory approaches, to pay more attention to developing markets for products, and to somehow counter the handout culture. This is challenging stuff, however!

And why should food consumers in the U.S. care about what is happening in places like Ethiopia? Apart from the obvious moral imperative, it is becoming clear that developing countries are going to be major suppliers of global food requirements in the coming decades (see Mario Herrero’s recent paper in Science). Also, a widening gulf between rich and poor will have some very negative effects on global security—a bit of investment in smallholder agriculture now will make the planet a more peaceful place in years to come!

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.

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.

“Meet the Nourishing the Planet Advisory Group” is a regular series where we profile advisors of the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we’re featuring Sue Edwards, who is the Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD).

Sue Edwards (right) with her husband, Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher.

Name: Sue Edwards

Affiliation: Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD)

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Bio: Sue Edwards is Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) and has lived in Ethiopia for more than 40 years (since 1968). Her husband is Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, and both are passionate about the importance of recognizing the role of smallholder farmers in “nourishing the planet” for a sustainable future for all living things, from the greatest to the smallest, from the most appealing to the most appalling (for us people).

On NTP: This is a vital project that brings together the rich variety of ways that people have developed to both sustain ourselves and respect the basic natural laws that underlie, or should underlie, the kind of agricultural development needed to acheive a healthy future for all.

What is the connection between agriculture and alleviating global hunger and poverty? Good agriculture combines the knowledge of how people can obtain the food and other natural products we need in a way that is ecologically and culturally appropriate for the setting where we live. This is the wonderful pattern of farming and foods that all local people have developed, and that fits with their local ecosystems. In urban settings, growing herbs on the windowsill and salad in window boxes, having school gardens, and linking directly with more serious full- and part-time growers of our food should bring healthy, nourishing, and interesting food within the reach of all. The industrial idea that everything has to be supplied from outside means that only those who can afford to buy these products are the ones that cannot be hungry, and those who cannot buy will automatically at a minimum have their choices and opportunities for healthy and affordable food reduced, or most likely eliminated.

Your organization’s mission is “to contribute towards an Ethiopia that is free of hunger and poverty, where communities are empowered with the knowledge and responsibilities to chart their own development, and where the best from traditional knowledge, practices and innovations is maintained and enhanced with modern knowledge, practices and innovations.” Why is it so important to integrate traditional knowledge, practices, and innovations with modern knowledge? The empirical knowledge, or folklore, that local people—farmers, fishers, foresters, and pastoralists—have acquired and built on over the last 10,000 years or more of agriculture is a vast pool of knowledge and wisdom that needs to be respected and understood with the benefits of modern science so that it becomes enhanced and enriched without destroying the base from which this knowledge came. It is all too easy to believe that change has to come by “throwing the baby out with the bath water.” Yes, there are traditional practices that need challenging, but there are many, many more that are sound and that can be used as the base to build better, but not greedy, lives for all.

Can you describe the relationship between global agriculture policies and small-scale farmers that you work with regularly? I feel that at last some of the key policymakers in important institutions, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, are not only realizing but also speaking out for the critical role of small-scale farmers in meeting the challenge of overcoming poverty and hunger in both the developing and the developed world.

What kinds of policy changes would you like to see implemented immediately to address the needs of small-scale farmers? First is to have the importance of traditional knowledge, practices, and innovations (as stated in the Convention on Biological Diversity) properly recognized and budgeted so that they can take their place on the research agendas of all national and international agricultural research institutions. Second, to have it recognized that “quick fixes” and “one size fits all” will never bring genuine sustainable development in agriculture and to adopt policies that enable researchers and farmers to have the time, places, and support to work together as genuine partners. Then improvements and solutions can be location- and culture-specific and be genuinely sustainable. Probably the most difficult input for this set-up to work is time.

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.”