Cross-post (op-ed) from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet
By Danielle Nierenberg and Brian Halweil
It’s been twenty-five years since a well-meaning music producer threw together a bunch of megastars to record the now ubiquitous humanitarian torch song, Do They Know it’s Christmas. Bob Geldof’s Band-Aid raised millions of dollars and immeasurable awareness with the compelling chorus of “Feed the World,” but global interest in those hungry people has plummeted in the last two decades, if the barometer is international investment in agriculture: agriculture’s share of global development aid has dropped from 7 percent to 4 percent since the song debuted, even though most of the world’s poor and hungry people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.
The famine-stricken Ethiopia that inspired the song in the 1980s remains hobbled by food shortages today: some 23 million people in the Horn of Africa are at risk for starvation, according to the World Food Program, which delivers food aid around the world. The global recession and a recent spike in food prices aren’t helping, either; the United Nations reported recently that the number of hungry worldwide has crested 1 billion.
The sheer number of hungry people isn’t the only reason we must raise our standards for success. Because agriculture makes up such a large percentage of the planet’s surface, and touches our rivers, air, and other natural resources so intimately, the world can’t tolerate some of the unintended-and counterproductive-consequences of how we farm and produce food. And farmers everywhere, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, will need crop varieties and whole new approaches to farming that help them deal with drought, extreme heat and increasingly erratic weather.
Hopefully, our collective understanding of how to “cure” hunger has matured enough over the last twenty-five years to recognize that solutions lie not only in shipping food aid, but a new approach to agriculture that nourishes people and the planet. One of us has been traveling in Africa for the last two months, visiting farmers, agricultural research centers and other sources of innovation. There is no shortage of innovative and winning ideas on the continent.
In the spirit of reflection and renewal that comes with the conclusion of yet another year, here are four recommendations for farmers, agribusiness, politicians and other agricultural decision-makers to consider as they make their New Year’s resolutions.
1. Move beyond seeds.
The vast majority of global investment in agriculture is aimed at seeds. But we’ve neglected the environment in which the seeds grow-that is, the soil, nearby trees, livestock and the rest of the farm, not to mention the food processors, roads and other pieces of the food system that gets the crop to market and onto tables.
Consider that in sub-Saharan Africa, the region of the world where the greatest percentage of people are hungry, just 4 percent of the farmland is irrigated (compared with 70 percent in Asia). In parts of Kenya, Tanzania and Mali, the hundreds of thousands of farmers using inexpensive, locally made water pumps have seen incomes double and triple, because they can grow a greater range of crops, over a greater share of the year, and are protected from losing entire crops to drought.
2. Cut the slack in the system.
Instead of focusing simply on increasing production, what about making better use of what we already produce? It turns out that a shocking 30 to 50 percent of what’s harvested in poorer nations spoils or is contaminated by pests or mold before it reaches the dinner table.
There’s no new seed variety in the pipeline that promises anything like a 30 to 50 percent boost in production. But simple fixes can go a long way. In Nairobi, Margaret Njeri Ndimu has started selling her goats’ milk in plastic bags sealed with candle wax. She learned this simple process through a training program provided by the Mazingira Institute; the bags make it easier to manage and sell her milk, allowing her customers to purchase small quantities of the perishable milk in portable containers. Similar practices can be used by other urban milk producers in cities all over the world.
3. Go local (and regional).
Just as important as the techniques that farmers use is to what extent the farmers and farm communities control those techniques. Locavores in the United States and Europe argue the benefits of a more decentralized food system, and solutions for hunger will often be rooted in harnessing local crop diversity, building up locally owned infrastructure, and developing regional markets.
In Kampala, Uganda, Project Disc is working with Slow Food chapters to catalogue and revive neglected indigenous foods and foodways that can help inject diversity into diets and into farmers’ fields. At the World Vegetable Center in Tanzania, researchers are working with farmers to breed vegetable varieties that don’t need costly fertilizers and pesticides, use less water, are locally appropriate, and raise farmer income. Mr. Babel Isack, a Tanzanian tomato farmer, advises staff at the Center about tomato varieties that best suit his needs, including those that depend less on chemical sprays and have a longer shelf life.
4. Position Farms on the Frontline of Climate Change.
Agriculture is the human endeavor likely to be most affected by a changing climate. But it turns out that agriculture, livestock grazing and forestry-responsible for nearly one third of global greenhouse gas emissions-is also the only near-term option for large-scale greenhouse sequestration. In fact, a combination of farming with perennial crops and grasses, cutting nitrogen fertilizer use and managing manure better, reducing erosion, and enriching soils with organic matter could offset one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Dr. Frank Place, of the World Agroforestry Centre in Kenya, several million farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are using leguminous trees and shrubs that are grown along with or before or after crops. This technique can improve soil, double or triple the yields of the subsequent crop, and eliminate the need for artificial fertilizers. These trees also lock two to three times the carbon into the soil as a typical corn crop.
All of these measures hold untapped potential for boosting global food production, strengthening rural communities, rebuilding ecosystems, and reducing poverty and hunger. And in contrast to “band-aid” shipments of food, the lasting solutions will involve farmers and food communities working together to feed themselves.
Danielle Nierenberg and Brian Halweil are Senior Researchers at the Worldwatch Institute. Danielle has been traveling in sub-Saharan Africa for the last two months researching innovations in African agriculture. Read more about her travels at Nourishing the Planet.
