Photo credit: Bernard Pollack
1. Rachel Friedman says:
“I would agree somewhat with Jan Nijhoff (COMESA), in that more funding needs to go into setting up networks for farmers to access markets and receive a fair price for their goods–whether that is by helping to form cooperatives that have more power or in those partnerships with private entities.”
2. Jennifer Geist, Bridges to Understanding, USA says:
“I really feel like there is a great deal of knowledge held by people in every country, every climate, and that we need to support local efforts to feed local people in accordance with that local know-how. Mass production may be more efficient in some ways, especially using food production to create wealth, but sustainability and security will be found in local production and consumption. We should fund local farmers to produce and feed their communities, and we should remove the competition/subsidies that make this work unfeasible. The oldest family farm in America was just sold this week!”
3. Lowden Stoole says:
“Thank you for the opportunity to add my views to the debate on agricultural funding. I am using the principles of Foundation for Farming to educate small-scale farmers in the rural areas of Zimbabwe and have been greatly encouraged by the results. Like Ambassador Ray (Zimbabwe), I have for a long time felt that Africa no longer needs hand-outs particularly food, but that funding should be directed into education and training. There must be a move from dependency to self sufficiency.”
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.
