With our THRIVE campaign in full swing, we can’t seem to get away from talking about agriculture. And how could we? We know that growth in agriculture is on average three times as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other economic sectors, such as mining and manufacturing. We know that the industry employs nearly two-thirds of the workforce in sub-Saharan Africa. We know that 925 million people struggle daily with chronic hunger. Agriculture is a big deal and it deserves to be talked about.
Government-funded global agriculture programs are making a world of difference for many small farmers in rural Africa. Don’t believe it? Read the living proof:
Well-adapted to harsh, arid climates, cowpeas are an important nutrient-rich source of food in many parts of West and Central Africa. But farmers can lose up to half their crops from bug infestations. Find out how a unique bagging method is cutting losses and increasing yields.
Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage bags are opened during a May 2011 ceremony in Pala, Chad. The hermetic grain storage bags have allowed farmers in Africa to safely store their cowpea grain so they can sell their crop well beyond harvest. Photo credit: Purdue Agricultural Communication photo/Beksoubo Damienne
Each year, up to 50 percent of cowpeas in Africa are lost after harvest because of infestations by small insects known as weevils and other pests. But a simple yet innovative technology is reversing this trend — the triple-bagging method introduced by the Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS) project.
Government-funded global agriculture programs are making a world of difference for many small farmers in rural Africa. Don’t believe it? Read the living proof:
A challenge facing many smallholder farmers in Malawi is earning enough money to feed their families and send their kids to school. Improving the country’s dairy industry is one way to help turn things around.
Meet Donata Kuchawo, a 45-year-old married mother of five and caretaker of two orphans. Donata turned to dairy farming because growing maize and beans alone was not enough to provide for her family. After turning to the Chitsanzo Milk Bulking Group – a dairy cooperative in rural Malawi supported by Land O’Lakes, General Mills and USAID – Donata has been able to pay for her kids to go to school, supports her sister’s children and has built a home for her family.
In honor of Thrive, our new food security campaign, I decided to dig up some photos of farmers and farm workers in Africa. It may surprise you that many of these workers are hardworking women who — in addition to raising their children and caring for their families — till the fields, sow the seeds and basically, do all the backbreaking labor it requires to bring food from farm to table. As you look at these photos, please reflect on the importance of sustainable agriculture in Africa, then support them by signing our petition here.
It really is backbreaking work — farmers from the Okyereko Rice Cooperative in Ghana.
It is one of Africa’s cruelest ironies that as the planting season begins, as it is now across much of the continent, so does the hunger season. The food stocks from the previous harvest are running low and it will be several months before the next harvest comes in. Whatever food remains in the household is rationed: portions shrink, meals are skipped, malnutrition rises.
We have all seen the pictures of children and adults starving during famine. They are horrific and heartbreaking. While these epic hunger emergencies are becoming less frequent and less severe, thanks to initiatives like safety net programs and more responsive food aid systems, the global hunger crisis still rages. It is a chronic crisis, a hunger that grinds on day after day, largely hidden, rarely making an appearance on our television screens. It is the hunger season that has no end.
Want to plant an idea in the heads of the G8? That’s what we’re asking ONE members to do. Quite literally!
Here’s the deal: The G8 will be meeting at Camp David in just a little over a month (May 18th and 19th, to be exact) and agriculture in the developing world is expected to be a big focus. That’s why we’re acting fast to make sure the G8 leaders make the most of this opportunity by implementing a bold global plan to ensure 50 million people escape poverty through agriculture and 15 million children no longer endure chronic malnutrition..
That’s a big goal, and this is an ambitious campaign. Check out our brand new THRIVE site where we’ve created a cool new animation that serves as a very literal interpretation of what we hope to accomplish with this petition, which we’ll deliver to the G8 in just a few weeks.
50 million people escaping poverty through agriculture and 15 million children no longer suffering from chronic malnutrition. We can get this done, but it’s going to require a big push from everyone. Sign our petition, share it with your friends, and learn more about how you can get involved right here: http://act.one.org/sign/thrive_us/?source=blog
Thanks, as always, for all you do. And stay tuned!
UNICEF’s Shantha Bloemen reports from Mauritania, one of eight countries facing a food crisis in the Sahel. This article is reprinted from the Field Notes blog with permission of UNICEF.
A malnourished child and his mother in a feeding center in Mauritania. Photo credit: Palitza/ UNICEF
There is much talk these days of reaching the unreached. But as I drive with UNICEF colleagues through the remote Hodh Gharbi scrubland in Mauritania, in north-west Africa’s Sahel region, there is little sign of any outside effort making its way here where the whimpers and restlessness – the signs of hunger – haunt the mothers in one scattered home after another.
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