borderjumpers | Motley Moose – Archive

A Conversation with Norman Uphoff, Advisor to Nourishing the Planet

In this regular series we profile advisors of the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we feature Norman Uphoff, professor of Government and International Agriculture at Cornell University.

Name: Norman Uphoff

Affiliation: Cornell University

Location: Ithaca, United States

Bio: Norman Uphoff is a professor of Government and International Agriculture at Cornell University and former director of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development, 1990 to 2005. His work has focused on development administration, irrigation management, local participation, and strategies for broad-based rural development. His current development interests have expanded beyond the social sciences to include agro-ecology, particularly the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and its extrapolation to other crops beyond rice.

Published work:

-“System of Rice Intensification responds to 21st Century Needs, Rice Today 3 (3): 42-43

–Reasons for Success: Learning from Instructive Experiences in Rural Development (1997), with Esman and Krishna, Kumarian Press.

-Agroecological Innovations: Increasing Food Production with Participatory Development (2002), Earthscan Press.

–Biological Approaches to Sustainable Soil Systems, managing editor (2006), CRC Press.

-“An assessment of physiological effects of system of rice intensification (SRI) practices compared to recommended rice cultivation practices in India,” with Thakur and Antony (2010) in Experimental Agriculture, 46:77-98

-“Learning about positive plant-microbial interactions from the System of Rice Intensification (SRI),” with Anas, Rupela, Thakur and Thiyagarajan (2009). Aspects of Applied Biology 98: 29-54.

On Nourishing the Planet: Nourishing the Planet is looking ahead at ways that we can, first, avert the most dire outcomes that will be the likely consequence of our present practices, and, second, reverse the present adverse trends by capitalizing on new opportunities. Both are necessary. Not enough people realize that we are ‘in a hole,’ and that continuing to ‘dig deeper’ will not get us out.

Our food production methods need to be reformulated and reoriented to approximate more closely the natural processes that have supported vegetation growth on the planet’s surface for some 400 million years. All herbivores, carnivores and omnivores (including us) are supported by these photosynthetically-driven processes and their associated soil system dynamics. Nourishing the planet in the decades ahead will depend on a profound understanding of ecological opportunities and limits.

The December 2009 issue of Farming Matters calls you “one of the most energetic and persistent promoters of SRI.” Can you describe your evolution from being a skeptic of the technique to becoming one its biggest supporters? When I first learned about ‘SRI’ from the Malagasy NGO Association Teffy Saina in December 1993 it sounded fantastical. How could farmers, who had very poor soils, significantly improve their yields-by 5, 10, even 15 tons per hectare-without the use of new, improved rice varieties, and without the use of chemical fertilizer (just compost made from any available biomass), and with less water? This was not believable. Even though I was a social scientist, not an agronomist, I knew this was not possible.

Holding Families and the Country Together

Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Fridah Mugo and her 13 siblings grew up in a farming family in rural Kenya, where the majority of young girls are not expected to finish primary school. But, in 1999, with a scholarship provided by Winrock International‘s African Women Leaders in Agriculture and the Environment program (AWLAE), she was able to complete her PhD in Natural Resources Policy and Management.

Now, with an education and AWLAE’s Leadership for Change training, Mugo is working to address the problem of devastating deforestation in Kenya where only 2 percent of the country is forested-in the 1950’s one third of Kenya was covered in trees. She provides extension services to rural communities dependent on wood burning cookers. Training women to make and use new and alternative energy sources, such as fireless cookers (reed baskets lined with cloth that can be quickly heated on fires to slowly cook food over the course of an entire day, reducing the need for firewood), Mugo is helping prevent the loss of more forest and improving livelihoods. (See also: Reducing the Things They Carry)

She also lobbies for women’s participation in agricultural development projects in Kenya and other African countries, and founded an education program for young girls, enabling dozens of girls to attend and complete primary school.

But in Kenya and most of sub-Saharan Africa, Mugo’s achievements as a woman are the exception, not the rule. “Women hold their families and country together. The problem is they have no decision-making power and lack access to resources and education. Those who do have resources can make a huge difference,” says Mugo.

Since its start in 1989, AWLAE has presented 570 women with scholarships for advanced studies, helped over 50,000 young girls gain access to primary education, and provided training to more than 100,000 farmers. The program also provides a network, connecting scholarship and training recipients to each other for support and to exchange knowledge and experiences.

And this support is just as important as the education itself because, according to Mugo, “women are brought up to listen. You’re not supposed to talk. At the training, they taught us that we could achieve anything.”

And, according to a growing number of voices in the global agriculture community, when women are allowed to strive to achieve anything, it is their families and the wider community that benefit. To read more about how empowering women can alleviate hunger and poverty, see also: Feeding Communities By Focusing on Women, Women Farmers Are Key to Halving Global Hunger by 2015, and Panelists Call for Women’s Important Role in Alleviating Global Hunger to be Reflected in Agriculture Funding.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts-we check comments everyday and look forward to a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive weekly updates-Sign up for our “Nourishing the Planet” weekly newsletter at the blog by clicking here and receive regular blog and travel updates.

Finding Ways to Put Innovations into Practice

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Madagascar, like many other African nations, “is based on rice,” says Xavier Rakontonjanahary, the Rice Breeding Coordinator at the Centre National de la Recherche Apliquee au Developpement Rural/FOFIFA or the National Center for Rural Development.

As a result, FOFIFA works with farmers, developing different rice varieties for different regions and different conditions. Their approach, according to Xavier, is to not only introduce different varieties of rice and different innovations, “but also listen to farmers.” FOFIFA works with farmers to adapt different technologies and innovations to fit their own needs through extension services and on-farm testing.

“You need innovation,” says Xavier, “but when you talk about application, it’s not always working.” In other words, it’s not just enough to develop an innovation-such as SRI, which increases yields, but is more labor intensive, or F1 rice hybrids, which requires a lot of expensive fertilizers-unless farmers are able to practice it.

And while conservation farming practices, such as minimal tillage and the use of compost, can help prevent erosion and improve soils in Madagascar, Xavier notes that the country, even with funding from the French government and other donors, “can’t be Brazil when it comes to conservation farming.” In Southern Brazil, cover crops, intercropping, and other conservation agriculture practices are used extensively for maize . But “lowland rice in Madagascar is very different than other crops,” says Xavier. And while rice can be intercropped with wheat or trees in integrated rice and agroforestry projects, not every farmer in Madagascar will be able to use those practices.

“We have enough innovations,” says Xavier, “but they’re not applied” because of constraints, including farmers access to credit or land or markets. Removing those constraints and strengthening farmers’ rights need to be considered, according to Xavier, if you want to improve hunger and poverty.

Stay tuned for more about rice breeding in Senegal when we write from West Africa in a few weeks.

This is a weekly series where we recommend an artist, song, or compilation of songs, from a country in Africa, brought to you by our awesome friends at Awesome Tapes From Africa. Today’s selection is from Ghana:

Ghana has a wealth of regional music variation and the Accra area (Ghana’s capital) is home to some particularly interesting stuff. Ga music, as performed by the Allan Family Culture Troupe, is excellent. These are the rhythms upon which the dzama (or jama) style of hiplife is based. But even without the now ubiquitous presence of these patterns in Ghanaian pop I would hasten to say this music is some of the most vital traditional music in Ghana.

Re-Directing Ag Funding to Small-Scale Farmers for Improved Food Security

Cross posted from BorderJumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

Check out Food First‘s most recent edition of Alternatives to the Green Revolution in Africa newsletter (AAAGRrrr!). In a piece written by Richard Jonasse and Tanya Kerssen, Nourishing the Planet Advisory Group member, Professor Olivier De Schutter, is quoted about the threat of increasing corporate consolidation in the food system and how it puts small farmers at risk. De Schutter calls on African nations to increase access for farmers to markets and strengthening local and public procurement systems. Food First points out “that the ability-and the willingness-of developing countries to carry out such policies, however, is constrained in part by the enormous influence of the multilateral Aid regime.”

“In their struggles for land reform, democracy and food sovereignty, peasant movements must confront not only unaccountable governments and corporations, but powerful philanthropies and international aid institutions that are shaping every imaginable aspect of the political (and actual) landscape,” according to the article.

Ultimately, what is needed, says Food First, is “strengthening smallholder agriculture and the social fabric through the promotion of cohesive farmer collectives and smallholder support mechanisms, local control over seed production and research, and stopping land grabs through secure land rights.”

Stay tuned for more about innovations that put farmers in the driver’s seat in State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts — we check for comments everyday and want to have a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive regular updates–Join the weekly BorderJumpers newsletter by clicking here.

3. Help keep our research going–If you know of any great projects or contacts in West Africa please connect us connect us by emailing, commenting or sending us a message on facebook.

Despite Challenges, Conserving Natural Resources and Improving Livelihoods in Madagascar

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Madagascar has had more than its share of bad luck in the last year. In 2009, a military coup deposed the government. But the government wasn’t the only thing that collapsed. The island nation’s $400 million per year tourism revenue also disappeared, which has led to increased logging and deforestation of Madagascar’s forests. And many of the NGOs and aid agencies that were working in Madagascar for decades have found their projects hindered by new regime’s policies-as a result, many have scaled back or left the country.

One NGO, however, the Italian-based Reggio Turzo Mundo (RTM), has continued to work with farmers in the country, despite the challenges. RTM works with farmers and farmers groups to develop alternatives to slash and burn agriculture, including organic farming practices that help build up soils.

RTM is also helping develop a manual for organic agriculture for farmers. “Organic agriculture,” says Tovohery A. Ramahaimandimbisoa, RTM’s organic agriculture coordinator, “is not promoted by the government.” In 2009 the former government provided farmers with a subsidy for fertilizer, but the current government won’t be providing farmers with fertilizer or other inputs, forcing many to burn forests to provide nutrients to the soil.

By teaching farmers how to compost, prevent erosion, and keep nutrients in the soil, RTM hopes to prevent slash and burn agriculture and help improve livelihoods. According to Ramahaimandimbisoa, “many small producers in the field are already organic, but they’re not making money.”

And RTM is also helping farmers develop certification collectives for organic products, such as cloves, ginger, black and white pepper, and vanilla. These collectives, says, Lorena Iotti, RTM program coordinator, will help make it possible for farmers to develop their own certification standards and make it easier to export products to Italy and other countries.

Stay tuned for more about agriculture in Madagascar later this week.

A Conversation with Dave Andrews

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

In this regular series, we profile advisors to the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we feature Dave Andrews, Senior Representative for Food & Water Watch.

Name: Dave Andrews

Affiliation: Food & Water Watch

Location: Washington, D.C., United States

Bio: Dave Andrews is Senior Representative for Food & Water Watch and a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, an international Catholic religious order of men. Dave has over 30 years of work on sustainable development, food and water issues, and public policy both nationally and internationally. He was the Executive Director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference for 13 years. He has served on many Boards of Directors including the Organization for Competitive Markets, Heifer International, the Community Food Security Coalition, the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, and the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. He has attended the last three World Trade Organization meetings, World Food Summits and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Can you describe your recent work and how it relates to Nourishing the Planet?: There are two major issues that have been the focus of my recent work. The first is the Global Food Security and Nutrition programs and the second is anti-trust efforts in agriculture. The global food security issue is one that has arisen from the recent food crisis and serving as I do on the steering committee for a Food Crisis Working Group as well as an Interfaith Working Group on the Food Crisis, two different efforts with a small amount of overlapping organizations, I am watching and writing regularly as these programs develop in Congress and in the State Department. Soon, I think the results will be announced but it has been a yearlong effort. My concern has been to try and influence the debate on behalf of Food & Water Watch, to keep the solutions proposed as sustainable as possible and to emphasize decision making power at the grass-roots level throughout the developing world. At the global level there is similar policy being articulated by the World Bank and by the United Nations. The World Bank has organized a trust fund for development, our work is to keep civil society in the process of decision-making, especially a farmer from the south. At the global level too, there is now a process for revising the Comprehensive Framework for Action (on the food crisis) with significant inclusion of civil society. My work has been to communicate and link US civil society efforts with global civil society. These are significant because the newly organized Committee on Food Security will be the major global actor dealing with the food crisis. These activities are time consuming, intense and involve detailed attentiveness. They are probably the most significant food and agriculture activities nationally and globally for the past 50 years and are meant to go into effect in the next 50 years.

Another serious effort at present is my involvement with the anti-trust work of the federal government. There is a historic effort by the Justice Department and the Department of Agriculture to explore anti-trust in agriculture. The series of workshops around the country are a first. I organized a reception to follow up the workshop held in Iowa and Food & Water Watch helped organize a highly attended pre-meeting which educated the public about anti-trust in agriculture. I am currently helping to organize an independent effort in New York City soon as a teach-in on anti-trust. Soon there will be meetings on poultry in Alabama, beef in Colorado, and retail spread in Washington, DC. One issue I’m researching is the relevance of US anti-trust efforts in agriculture to European and other efforts and the relevance of anti-trust to development. Does the power of a few big companies and their influence impact development? That is a question that I’m currently exploring.

Can you describe the relationship between global agriculture policies and small-scale farmers? We have a global economy and in many ways are a global society. Most of the world’s work is agriculture and most of that is done by women. The small holder farmer is the focus of much of development work today, having been ignored by governments and foundations in development work for the past 30 years. In the light of climate change, gender considerations, and effective pro-poor policies there have developed several policy preferences, one I call productivist and the other I call holist. One focuses mainly on increasing production, the other looks at the ecology, economy and social concerns of agriculture in development. My emphasis has been on the latter sustainable approach, whether focused on anti-trust or global food security, it fully appears to me that an appreciation of complexity calls for a long-term, nuanced approach. That approach has been articulated in the 2008 International Assessment of Science and Technology in Development (IAASTD) report of the United Nations and funding through the World Bank. It fully appears to me that the way forward requires action at every level: global, national, and grassroots. It is a time of challenge and it is a time that requires us to be nimble in our policy advocacy.

Feeding Communities by Focusing on Women

Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

In Washington DC last week at the House Hunger Caucus briefing, panelist, Cheryl Morden, Director of the North American Liaison Office of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), concluded that, in the global agriculture funding community’s struggle to alleviate hunger and poverty, there is a “big pay-off in focusing on women,” but ” neglect them and you’ll end up doing harm.”

Although women farmers produce more than half of the food grown in the world-and roughly 1.6 billion women depend on agriculture for their livelihoods-they are often not able to benefit from general agriculture funding because of the institutional and cultural barriers they face-including lack of access to land, lack of access to credit, and lack of access to education. Worldwide, women receive only about 5 percent of agriculture extension services and own about 2 percent of land worldwide.

But research has shown that when women’s incomes are improved,and when they have better access to resources like education, infrastructure, credit, and health care, they tend to invest more in the nutrition, education, and health of their family, causing a ripple effect of benefits that can extend to the entire community.

In Kibera-sub-Saharan Africa’s largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where anywhere from 700,000 to a million people live-women farmers, with training and seeds provided by the French NGO Soladarites, are growing vegetable farms in sacks filled with dirt. More than 1,000 women are growing food in this way and during the food crisis in Kenya during 2007 and 2008, when conflict in Nairobi prevented food from coming into the area, most residents did not go hungry because there were so many of these ‘vertical farms.’

In Zambia, Veronica Sianchenga, a farmer living in Kabuyu Village, saw improvements in 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 from International Development Enterprises (IDE). In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the task of gathering water-in the driest parts of the continent this can require up to eight hours of labor per day – usually falls to women. 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.”

In Rwanda, the Farmers of the Future Initiative (FOFI) helps to empower young girls and other students by integrating school gardens and agriculture training into primary school curriculums. Over 60 percent of students in Rwanda will return to rural areas to farm for a living after graduating instead of going on to secondary school or university. While both young boys and girls benefit from the training, it is especially important for young girls to learn these skills, says Josephine Tuyishimire, so that they can avoid dependence on men for food and financial security. And so they can share what they learn.

By “passing these skills to future generations” – or the children that are often under their care- said Tuyishimire, women help to create future farmers who are prepared to feed themselves and similarly self-sufficient and empowered.

To learn more about women’s important role in alleviating global hunger and poverty, see: Farming on the Urban Fringe, Building a Methane Fueled Fire, Women Entrepreneurs: Adding Value, Women Farmers Are Key to Halving Global Hunger by 2015, For Many Women, Improved Access to Water is About More than Having Something to Drink, and Reducing the Things They Carry.

1,000 Words About Tanzania

Cross posted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Kigoma, Tanzania

We arrived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania excited to catch a flight to Kigoma, a region in the northwestern part of the country to visit a Jane Goodall Institute Tanzania project working with small farmers to promote sustainable agriculture. Unfortunately Precision Air, one of only two airlines that flies to the remote region, has suspended all flights for the next several weeks and the other airline is all booked.

No worries, we headed to Zanzibar instead….

Zanzibar is a place known for beautiful beaches, but the thing that I liked most about my visit there was the food. Everywhere you look there’s a bounty of fresh vegetables, fruit, and, most importantly given the island’s history, spices. Zanzibar is one of the “Spice Islands,” a group of islands that supplied cloves, coriander, nutmeg, pepper, vanilla, and other spices to Europe in the 17th Century. Today, those spices are grown much the same way they were then-organically, without the use of chemical pesticides and artificial fertilizers, in response to consumer demand. And they’re still grown on large plantations, but instead of slaves planting and harvesting the crops, local Tanzanian farmers use intercropping to grow many of the spices along with fruit trees and vegetables. The spice farms are also benefiting from tourism-I paid a shockingly low $12 for my day long trip to the spice farm, which included a wonderful (and spicy!) vegetarian lunch and a trip to a pristine and deserted beach.

The Tanzanian government, however, controls much of the land where the spices are grown and also where they are sold. Vanilla grown in Zanzibar, for example, is not used on the island or even in mainland Tanzania, but is grown exclusively for export. And Zanzibar is also the world’s third largest supplier of cloves, the main export from the island.

When we arrived back to Dar Es Salaam we did have the opportunity to meet with Pancras Ngalason who is the Executive Director of Jane Goodall Center (JGI) in Tanzania and he explained how the Institute has evolved since it began in the 1970s. They’ve gone, according to Ngalason, beyond research to address questions of livelihood.

JGI started as a center to research and protect wild chimpanzee populations in what is now, thanks to their efforts, Gombe National Park. But in the early 1990s JGI realized that if it didn’t start addressing the needs of the communities surrounding the park, their efforts to conserve wildlife wouldn’t work. JGI first started by planting trees in the region, but soon found that communities cut them down, not because they wanted to, but because they needed them for fuel and for making charcoal. It was at that time, says Ngalason, that we “thought beyond planting trees” and more about community-based conservation.

JGI started working with communities to develop government- mandated land use plans, helping them develop soil erosion prevention practices, agroforestry, and production of value-added products, such as coffee and palm oil. They like to say that their products are “Good for All”-good for farmers by providing income, good for the environment by protecting natural resources, and good for the consumer by providing a healthy product.

They’re also working training community health practitioners about reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention, educating youth, establishing micro-credit programs, and working with UNICEF and USAID to supply clean water to communities.

We then hopped on a bus to Arusha, Tanzania to meet with the World Vegetable Center…

As hunger and drought spread across Africa , there’s a huge focus on increasing yields of staple crops, such as maize, wheat, cassava, and rice. And while these crops are important for food security, providing much needed calories, they don’t provide much protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, calcium, iron, riboflavin, thiamin, niacin, other important vitamins and micronutrients-or much taste. “None of the staple crops,” says Dr. Abdou Tenkouano, the World Vegetable Center’s Regional Director for Africa, “would be palatable without vegetables.” And vegetables, he says, “are less risk prone” than staple crops that stay in the field for longer periods of time.

Because vegetables typically have a shorter growing time, they can maximize often scarce water supplies and soil nutrients better than crops such as maize which need a lot of water and fertilizer.

Unfortunately no country in Africa, according to Dr. Tenkouano, has a big focus on vegetable production. But that’s where the Center steps in. Since the 1990s, the Center (which is a part of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center based in Taiwan) has been working in Africa to breed cultivars that best suit farmers’ needs.

Despite the focus on staple crops, vegetable production generates more income on and off the farm than most other agricultural enterprises, according to the Center’s website. And unlike staple crops, vegetable production is something that benefits urban and rural farmers alike (See our posts on urban farmers in Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya).

In addition, vegetable production is the most sustainable and affordable way of alleviating micronutrient deficiencies among the poor. Often referred to as “hidden hunger,” micronutrient deficiencies-including lack of Vitamin A, iron, and iodine-affect some 1 billion people worldwide. They lead to poor mental and physical development, especially among children, and cause poor performance in work and in school, further crippling communities already facing poverty and other health problems.

But by listening to farmers and including them in breeding research, the Center is helping to alleviate these problems.

Introducing a new weekly series where we recommend one song, or compilation of songs, from a country in Africa, brought to you by our awesome friends at Awesome Tapes From Africa. Today’s selection is from Zimbabwe.

There is a great diversity of music to be heard in Zimbabwe but one classic is John Chibadura and the Tembo Brothers. This music feels like nothing but good times.

1,000 Words About Ethiopia

Cross posted from BorderJumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

We started this trip in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a place most Americans associate with war and hunger because of the famines of the mid 1980s and 1990s. Even today, more than 6 million people in Ethiopia are at risk for starvation so we think we had mentally prepared myself for seeing very desperate people. Instead, though, we found farmers and NGO workers full of hope for agriculture in their country. That’s been our greatest surprise about the continent in general – how vibrant, entrepreneurial, friendly, positive, and alive people are here. Six months and fifteen countries later, we’re now in Dakar, Senegal, feeling more hopeful than ever that things are really changing.

The trip is surprising in a lot of different ways. While we’ve seen extreme poverty and environmental degradation during our trip, we’ve also been impressed by the level of knowledge about things like hunger, climate change, HIV/AIDS and other issues from the farmers we meet. The people in many of these countries know better than anyone how to solve the problems their facing, they just need attention-and support-from the international community. In Africa, maybe more than anywhere else we’ve traveled, a little funding can go a long way (if used the right way).

We met Kes Malede Abreha, described by our guides/interpreters as a “farmer-priest,” on his farm near Aksum in the Central Zone of Tigray region. A small, wiry, soft-spoken man with a neatly trimmed beard, Kes Malede is one of the leading “farmer-innovators” in his community. Roughly eight years ago, he started digging for water on his very dry farm. His neighbors thought he was crazy, telling him he would never find water on the site. His wife even left him, moving their children into town.

But about 16 meters down, Kes Malede hit water. After his wife returned, he began sketching ways that would make it easier to “push” that water to the surface. He developed a series of pumps, improving on each one. The one he’s using now is built from inexpensive wood, iron, and metal piping, all available locally. It can push or lift water not only to the surface, but also through a system of hoses to irrigate his fruit trees and farm crops, including teff, sorghum, tomatoes, and other vegetables.

As part of a group of farmers who can apply for and receive funding for their innovations from the global, NGO-initiated organization, Prolinnova, Kes Malede is teaching other farmers in the community by example, showing them how small investments in technology can make a big difference on the farm.

Peanut Butter and Progress

Crossposted from BorderJumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

Originally featured in the North Carolina News Observer.

It’s not every day you meet someone from Raleigh while traveling in Lusaka, Zambia. Dale Lewis might not have intended to spend decades in the landlocked African country of 12 million, but his passion for protecting wildlife and for conservation led him there – and his entrepreneurial spirit and desire to lift farmers from poverty while protecting the environment compelled him to stay.

How does Lewis, who attended Broughton High School and whose parents were longtime Raleigh residents, help alleviate hunger and poverty in Zambia’s most rural areas?

By making peanut butter, and lots of it!

One of the first things you notice about grocery stores in Zambia is the plethora of processed foods from around the world, from crackers made in Argentina and soy milk from China to popular U.S. breakfast cereals. Complementing these foreign foods, however, are a variety of locally made and processed products, including indigenous varieties of organic rice, all-natural peanut butter and honey from the It’s Wild brand.

It’s Wild was started by the Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), which Lewis founded over 30 years ago to conserve and protect local wildlife.

COMACO helps farmers improve their agricultural practices in ways that can protect the environment while also creating a reliable market for farm products. It organizes farmers into producer groups, encouraging them to diversify their skills by raising livestock and bees, growing organic rice, using improved irrigation and fisheries management and other practices so that they don’t have to resort to poaching elephants or other wildlife.

By targeting hard-to-reach farmers who live near protected areas, “we’re trying to turn things around,” Lewis says. For decades, many farmers in eastern Zambia practiced slash-and-burn agriculture and were involved in widespread elephant poaching. It was their only option. Degraded soils and drought left many farmers in the region desperate.

By training more than 650 “lead” farmers to train other farmers, COMACO hopes not only to protect the environment and local wildlife, but also to help farmers increase their incomes by connecting them to the private market. The organization supports creation of regional processing centers and trading depots to make it easier for farmers to process their crops and transport them to market. It also offers a higher price to farmers who grow rice and other products organically and for those who use the conservation farming techniques they’ve learned from trainers and lead farmers.

Lewis says that when farmers comply with COMACO, they see benefits, including improvements in food security and health.

The resulting products are then sold under the It’s Wild brand in major supermarket chains across Zambia, such as ShopRite, Checkers and Spar. Next year, COMACO plans to export its products to Botswana. The organization is trying to do as much of the product distribution as possible so that the money stays with the farmers and not middlemen.

COMACO has also gotten technical support from Minneapolis-based multinational food giant General Mills. The company paid for a COMACO food technician to visit its headquarters in early 2009 to learn how different food processing techniques can increase the nutritional and economic value of the foods the organization is selling. Lewis hopes that eventually COMACO will be self-sufficient, and profitable, without the current dependence on donor funding. But that’s not easy for an organization that works with thousands of farmers and has high administrative, transport and salary costs.

He says that he is 70 percent there and is determined to show that his model is not only sustainable, but also profitable.

Danielle Nierenberg is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and co-project director of “State of World 2011: Nourishing the Planet.” Bernard Pollack is a travel writer from the District of Columbia, currently based in Africa.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts — we check for comments everyday and want to have a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive regular updates–Join the weekly BorderJumpers newsletter by clicking here.

3.Help keep our research going–If you know of any great projects or contacts in West Africa please connect us connect us by emailing, commenting or sending us a message on facebook.