1. Gregory Bowman, Bowman Farm and Ranch, USA says:
“Reforestation is the foundation to provide sustainable agriculture. Requirement of reforestation for USAID will be an incentive to reforest damaged lands. Once greenbelts are established, cash and food crops benefit from tree plantings. Valuable wood products provide cash and material for many applications including furniture making, crafts and net zero carbon emission fuels. Leaves provide valuable fodder for livestock. Without the drive to reforest damaged areas, agriculture is not sustainable. I have written and lectured on the topic of reforestation of damaged lands and have suggested that the US administration should enact a law regarding any funding to other countries. Called “Trees for Aid,” the program requires each and every country getting any aid from the US to plant and sustain trees/$ provided. The serious erosion and the growing damage to east Africa needs to be addressed by stimulus aid in reforesting and forest stewardship. Several models have been discussed and the consensus is that only when greenbelts are reestablished to retain topsoil, provide new topsoil, fuel and building supply, and conservation of species, then agriculture prospers and sustainability is possible. Without trees the soil cannot be conserved and built. Intercropping of food crops is boosted with greenbelts. Paulownia seems to be a valuable species to plant for its unmatched growth, deep root structure to not compete with intercropping, and the value of the wood and highly digestible fodder. Certainly other species should be considered. Gum is not a good anchor species due to its toxicity to the soil. Reforestation to prevent erosion and protecting species is the foundation by which intercropping of food and cash crops is possible. Without it, soils are depleted and agriculture is not possible. Most if not all food crops show increased production with intercropping and cash crops such as coffee and cocoa are greatly improved with intercropped greenbelts due to thermal stabilization, decreased evaporation, and increased topsoil from fodder. The leaves provide more nutritious fodder than alfalfa and Paulownia is rated as one of the top species to absorb carbon dioxide, as much as ten times more than other species of trees. With this in mind, the goal is to plant 10 billion trees over 5 years; this is practical in exchange for US aid. Sustainable relationships based on tree planting as a requirement for funds is not only sustainable but a win/win plan. Wood products can be used for local crafts, fuel, and exportation. Once greenbelts have been established, agriculture comes naturally and crops benefit from the establishment of new forest.
2. Lucila Nunes de Vargas says:
“I would like to see more funding in support to traditional seed keepers all over the world, because they are the ones who are going to save us from the catastrophe of the genetic modified crops.”
3. Caroline Smith says:
“I’d like to see more funding going to ongoing (not on-off) participatory education/training (such as in leading-farmer model) for farmers and extension workers in small and medium scale systems that support local farmers in maintaining and building sustainable food security. This would bring together indigenous and appropriate western scientific knowledge so that farming does not degrade local ecosystems with inappropriate and indiscriminate use of chemicals. Certainly would include support for women farmers. Models that derive from permaculture-type design tailored to local culture and systems would seem to be ideal to me.”
photo credit: Bernard Pollack
4. Tesfom Solomon, Sweden says:
“Thank you for sharing an important research question. In fact I’m going to research the same area in Eritrea and already have similar question to answer. I would like to see a way for a farmer to be a self reliant by bringing the development agencies and government strategies into one portfolio.”
5. Sahr Lebbie, Heifer, USA says:
“I think more agricultural funding should be directed to supporting smallholder farmers to become better at farming, increase productivity and attain self-sufficiency (food and economic security). This will be achieved by increasing access to productive resources, especially capital, and building strong and stable local institutions to backstop them in scaling up (micro-finance institutions with a human face, reliable and low cost business delivery services. This will mean forging mutually respectful and responsible alliances that involve the private sector, the public sector and the smallholder farmers.”
6. Jenny Goldie, Australia says:
“In many parts of the world, increases in agricultural production are often offset by continuing rapid population growth. In the Philippines, a USAID-backed project to combine coastal management with family planning resulted in good social and environmental outcomes, ensuring a sustainable supply of fish for the people because, with a stable population, they did not need to overexploit their fish stocks. The same principle of dual-programs (agricultural development plus family planning) should be implemented in food-insecure parts of the world such as sub-Saharan Africa, India, Pakistan and Yemen, for instance.”
photo credit: Bernard Pollack
7. Steven Sweet says:
“There is no simple answer, because the agricultural systems are effected by and connected to every other structure within a society subjectively. Food and its means of production and consumption and how it ties into the entire societies existence is relative to that society. Status-quo socioeconomic, political/governmental, every dimension of subjectivity must be taken into account. We cannot go, as a country, over to another country with our psychological suitcase to help without taking into account cultural relativism. Without the current power structures taken into account, as Focault says, we run the risk of being led into a “new” system where the same issues re-manifest themselves. Helping lots of small groups of people with microloans only to have the systems funneling into a dictator who uses the new system to further his flex of control over them, for instance. With that being said, I believe that there should be a large focus on TEACHING. Teaching innovative farming techniques that increase stability and output of crops. There are opposing forces at hand in this scenario. The same government that has USAID and PeaceCorps is the same government that is trying to reduce population. For anything to really last, it seems as though we would truly need to take as much as possible into account simultaneously and work on it in a unified front globally, but that’s too ‘New World Order” for many, makes them uncomfortable. There is no logical answer to this question. Until we get all the rich global banking elite who extort and perpetuate the poor with economic and political tools, it’s a hard battle, we’re stuck in a lower local-ordinance rhythm. We should get the bankers to invest in overpopulated countries and third world countries so that way these countries stop having large families for varieties of reasons and can more efficiently and positively help themselves and not be victim to the system they are perpetuated in.”
8. Vicki Lipski says:
“As I’m sure you’re aware, soil is capable of sequestering all the CO2 we can produce, if we go about building soil the right way (see Rodale Institute). Permaculture is the way forward, industrial agriculture is destroying soils not just here, but overseas, as well. From coastal dead zones to carbon-free soils, we have paid, and paid again, for the well-intended Green Revolution. We must return to being a nation of farmers. Read about Rodale’s groundbreakiong research; then let’s implement it! WARNING: the White House will have to stand up to the likes of Monsanto, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and all the other companies with legions of lobbyists who are opposed to seeing their paychecks get smaller”
9. Viola Ransel says:
“I would like to see programs implemented that give people sovereignty over their food as opposed to having its production controlled by transnational corporations. How can we accomplish that?”
Part 1: Dave Andrews (USA), Dave Johnstone (Cameroon), & Pierre Castagnoli (Italy)
Part 2: Paul Sinandja (Togo), Dov Pasternak (Niger), & Pascal Pulvery (France)
Part 3: Christine McCulloch (UK), Hans R Herren (USA), & Amadou Niang.
Part 4 : Michel Koos (Netherlands), Don Seville (USA), & Ron Gretlarson
Part 5: Shahul Salim, Roger Leakey (Kenya), & Monty P Jones (Ghana)
Part 6: Calestous Juma (USA), Ray Anderson (USA), & Rob Munro (Zambia)
Part 7: Tom Philpott (USA), Grace Mwaura, & Thangavelu Vasantha Kumaran
Part 8: Peter Mietzner (Namibia), Madyo Couto (Mozambique), & Norman Thomas Uphoff (USA)
Part 9: Tilahun Amede (Ethiopia), Shree kumar Maharjan (Nepal), & Ashwani Vasishth (USA)
Part 10: Mary Shawa (Malawi), Wayne S. Teel (USA), & Bell Okello (Kenya)
Part 11: Mark Wells (South Africa), Pashupati Chaudhary (USA), & Megan Putnam (Ghana)
Part 12: David Wallinga (USA), Ysabel Vicente, & Esperance Zossou (Benin)
Part 13: Susi Basith (Indonesia), Diana Husic (USA), & Carolina Cardona (Togo)
Part 14: Rachel Friedman, Jennifer Geist (USA), & Lowden Stoole
Part 15: Antonio Requejo, Alexandra Spieldoch (USA), & Daniele Giovannucci (USA)
Part 16: Mary Njenga (Kenya), Mabel Toribio, & Makere Stewart-Harawira (Canada)br />
Part 17: Dale Lewis (Zambia), Chris Ojiewo (Tanzania), & Molly Mattessich (USA)
What is your answer? Email me at Dnierenberg@Worldwatch.org or tweet your response to @WorldWatchAg
Danielle Nierenberg, an expert on livestock and sustainability, currently serves as Project Director of State of World 2011 for the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank. Her knowledge of factory farming and its global spread and sustainable agriculture has been cited widely in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and
other publications.
Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She is currently traveling across Africa looking at innovations that are working to alleviate hunger and poverty and blogging everyday at Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. She has a regular column with the Mail & Guardian, the Kansas City Star, and the Huffington Post and her writing was been featured in newspapers across Africa including the Cape Town Argus, the Zambia Daily Mail, Coast Week (Kenya), and other African publications. She holds an M.S. in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in environmental policy from Monmouth College.
