Author: borderjumpers

Crossposted from Nourishing the Planet.

I’ve had the opportunity to try some traditional–and tasty–local foods while I’ve been traveling in Africa, including amaranth, breadfruit, matooke (mashed banana), posho (maize flour), groundnut sauce, spider weed, sukuma wiki (a leafy green), and a whole lot of other vegetables and fruits with names that I can neither remember nor pronounce.

One thing I haven’t tried yet is found all over Africa and, in addition to being a food source, it is also considered a pest–grasshoppers. As I was walking through a market in Kampala, Uganda I noticed women “shelling” what I thought were beans, but upon closer inspection the baskets sitting between their legs were full of wriggling grasshoppers. As they sat, chatting with one another and the curious American, they were de-winging the insects so that they could be either sold “raw” or fried for customers.

Despite the yuck factor many of you reading this might have for eating insects, grasshoppers, crickets, termites, and other “bugs” can be a nutritious source of protein, vitamins, minerals,

and other nutrients. According to the results from a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization workshop in 2008, caterpillars are an important source of food for many people in Central Africa, providing not only protein, but also potassium and iron.

Collecting and selling insects can also be an important source of income, especially for women in Africa. And as climate change increases the prevalence of certain insects, they become an even more important source of food in the future.

Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.

While touring Lilongwe, Malawi, we met Kambuku (which means “leopard” in Chichewa), who was soundly sleeping in his 2,500 sq meter backyard of fenced green landscape. He was rescued by the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre after poachers shattered his knee in Nyika National Park (making it impossible for him to ever return to the wild.) As we toured the facility nearly every animal we saw — from baboons to alligators — had a similar Cinderella story of overcoming insurmountable odds to survive and, in most cases, return back to the wild.

As we toured the animal rescue, rehabilitation and education facility, it was clear that the staff felt a deep commitment to their cause. The organization funded, in part, by UK-based retailer The Body Shop abides by the philosophy that all animals have the right to live in the wild and that teaching conservation is key to protecting the rights of wildlife.

Not only do they provide sanctuary space for rescued, confiscated, orphaned and injured wild animals of Malawi, but the Center is one of the leading organizations in Malawi pushing lawmakers to enforce and enact legislation in support of wildlife conservation and environmental protection. They also develop local partnerships and training programs with the farmers and communities surrounding national parks. The struggle between protecting wildlife and agriculture is becoming especially evident as drought, conflict, and hunger continue to affect sub-Saharan Africa.  I’ll be visiting other projects, including Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), in Zambia that are helping educate–and increase economic opportunities–for farmers living inside and near conservation areas.

Should you feel inspired to help the Center, you can donate directly by clicking here. Also, for a more hands-on experience, they are actively looking for volunteers on the ground to help.

Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.

Check out this video of Kristof Nordin discussing how growing indigenous vegetables benefits farmers in Malawi:

Check out a video from our visit to Kristof and Stacia Nordin’s Permaculture project outside Lilongwe, Malawi:

Crossposted from www.BorderJumpers.org.

We’ve taken some long bus rides in Africa. We spent 8 bumpy hours on a bus from Nairobi to Arusha; another 8 from Arusha to Dar Es Salaam. The longest so far, though, has been between Kigali, Rwanda and Kampala, Uganda. I am usually looking out the window, admiring the crops growing by the side of the road, desperately trying not to think about how I have to pee, and trying not to panic about how fast our bus driver is maneuvering between other buses, cattle, and street vendors hawking roasted corn, bananas, and pineapples on the side of the road. Bernie, on the other hand, has a different strategy for coping–sleep.

During that 12 hour bus ride, here are the things he slept through: a commercial bus going 80 miles an hour on a one lane highway (even getting stopped for a speeding ticket, which is tough to accomplish on these roads), crying babies (including the seat next to us), the driver flirting via text message on his cell phone and turning backwards (sometimes for as long as ten seconds) to make conversation with the bus company staffer, blasting American hip-hop accompanied by pirated music videos on the television screen, and so much more…

I love him, but the man can sleep through anything..

This is the first in a two-part series about my visit to the home of Kristof and Stacia Nordin in Lilongwe, Malawi. Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.

Stacia and Kristof Nordin have an unusual backyad. Rather than the typical bare dirt patch of land that most Malawians sweep “clean” every day, the Nordins have over 200 varieties of mostly indigenous vegetables growing organically around their house. They came to Malawi in the 1990s as Peace Corps Volunteers, but now call Malawi home. Stacia works for the Malawi Health Ministry, educating both policy-makers and citizens about the importance of indigenous vegetables and permaculture for improving livelihoods and nutrition.

Malawi may be best known for the so-called “Malawi Miracle.” Five years ago the government decided to do something controversial–provide fertilizer subsidies to farmers to grow maize. Since then maize production has tripled and Malawi has been touted as an agricultural success story. But the way they are refining that corn, says Kristof, makes it “kind of like Wonderbread,” leaving it with just two or three nutrients. Traditional varieties of corn, however, which aren’t usually so highly processed, are more nutritious and don’t require as much artificial fertilizer compared to hybrid varieties. According to Kristof, “48 percent of the country is still stunted with the miracle.”

Stacia and Kristof use their home as a way to educate their neighbors about both permaculture and indigenous vegetables. Most Malawians think of traditional foods, such as amaranth and African eggplant, as poor people foods grown by “bad” farmers. But these crops may hold the key for solving hunger, malnutrition and poverty in Malawi.

Rather than focusing on just planting maize–a crop that is not native to Africa–the Kristofs advise the farmers they work with that there is “no miracle plant, just plant them all.” Maize, ironically, is least suited to this region because it’s very susceptible to pests and disease. Unfortunately, the “fixation on just one crop,” says Kristof, means that traditional varieties of foods are going extinct–crops that are already adapted to drought and heat, traits that become especially important as agriculture copes with climate change.

And indigenous crops can be an important source of income for farmers. Rather than importing things like amaranth, sorghum, spices, tamarinds and other products from India, South Africa, and other countries, the Nordins are helping farmers find ways to market seeds, as well as value added products, from local resources. These efforts not only provide income and nutrition, but fight the “stigma that anything Malawian isn’t good enough,” says Kristof. “A lot of solutions,” he says, “are literally staring us in the face.” And as I walked around seeing–and tasting– the various crops at the Nordins’ home, it’s obvious that maize is not Malawi’s only miracle. Stay tuned for more about my trip to the Nordins.

This is the final in a four-part series on my visit to Heifer International projects in Gicumbi District in Rwanda. Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute Nourishing the Planet blog.

Leonard Birahira has been connected to Heifer International in Gicumbi District for the last seven years, but only recently as a beneficiary of their projects. He’s been using his carpentry skills to help build stalls for farmers to keep their animals, a requirement for all Heifer beneficiaries, and just last month received his own dairy cow as part of Heifer’s projects  in Rwanda. Dr. Dennis Karamuzi, the Director of Programs for Heifer Rwanda, told me that he’s looking forward to seeing this family in two years. Right now they live in a mud house, without electricity or running water, things the other Heifer beneficiaries we visited were able to get after they began raising cows and selling milk.

And Heifer’s work is now being recognized–and supported–by the Rwandan government. In 2008 the government instituted the One Cow Per Poor Household Program, which aims to give the 257,000 of the poorest households in the country training and support to raise milk for home consumption.  But Heifer, says, Dr. Karamuzi, is also building an exit strategy by connecting farmers to cooperatives, which can organize and train farmers themselves.

For more on Heifer International’s work in Rwanda, please see the following links: Rwanda Sustainable Dairy Enterprise Development Project and Miracle Cows in Rwanda.

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.

The streets in Kampala, Uganda are never empty.  Check out the video below to hear Danielle’s thoughts on the city (and it’s constant activity) and meet a young man named Brian we talked to who is eager for you all to come out and see all the commotion for yourselves!

Crossposted from www.BorderJumpers.org

This is the third in a four-part series on my visit to Heifer International projects in Gicumbi District in Rwanda.  Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute Nourishing the Planet blog.

In addition to milk and income, dairy farmers also get another important resource from their cows–manure. While raw manure can be composted for use on crops, cow dung can also be a source of fuel for households.

Madame Helen Bahikwe, another farmer in Gicumbi District, began working with Heifer International in 2002. She now has five cows–and an excess of manure. With a subsidy from the government as part of the National Biogas Program, Madame Helen built a biogas collection tank, which allows her to use the methane from decomposing manure to cook for her 10 person family. She no longer has to collect or buy firewood, saving both time and money and protecting the environment. The fuel is also cleaner burning, eliminating the smoke that comes from other sources of fuel.

And according to Mukerema Donatilla, another farmer we met, biogas “helps with hygiene” on the farm because they can use hot water to clean cow udders before milking and for cleaning milk containers.

Both Mukerema and Madame Helen had to contribute about $USD 700 for the materials to install their biogas units, while the government contributed about $USD 400. With funding from SNV, a Netherlands-based organization and the Rwanda Ministry of Infrastructure, the government hopes to have 15,000 households in the country collecting and using biogas by 2012.