Photo credit: Bernard Pollack
1. Susi Basith, Indonesia
“In developing countries, especially in Indonesia, the welfare of farmers will be accomplished if the project funds can be directed to: (1) development of infrastructure to support farming; (2) to increase farm credit;(3) improve the quality of agricultural product.”
2. Diane Husic, Department of Biological Sciences at Moravian College, USA says:
“There are a number of very small initiatives (in terms of people and dollars involved) where just a small bit of extra funding would go a long way. For example, a local couple from Pennsylvania realized on a visit to Ecuador that girls from remote mountain villages in the northern part of the country had limited opportunities for education. They started a school and as they got to know the families better, they realized that the agricultural practices were not what they could be and were having a significant environmental impact. So they have now begun an organic bio-intensive agriculture project — teaching the local people about alternatives and also how to better use crops better suited to the region, including native ones that people had turned away from. You can learn more here. This couple has worked miracles on very, very small budgets. It would also be nice to have a compilation of these types of efforts to have as models that could be shared.
I teach a course entitled “The Impact of Technology on Diet and Disease” and have learned first-hand how little college students know about where their food comes from and the impact of their food choices (be it on their health or on the environment). While (at least in the U.S.), there are some good educational programs related to agriculture at large land-grant institutions, agriculture is not a common topic (at the undergraduate level) at many, many other institutions of higher ed. And I suspect that agriculture issues on a global scale are discussed even less often. It would be great to invest a small amount of money to bring together educators who have developed curricula in this area to develop resources that could be shared with other faculty and discuss how issues of sustainable agriculture, food security, agriculture and climate change, etc. can be better integrated into education at a variety of levels. On a relative scale, such initiatives would not involve large sums of money but could have a large impact.”
3. Carolina Cardona, Peace Corps, Togo says:
“I would like to see more money directed to food security.”
To read more responses:
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)
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.
