Posts Tagged ‘food security’
Eating Locally in Dakar: Shifting the Focus
Posted in Models, Movements by Kate Archdeacon on August 10th, 2010
Source: Nourishing the Planet: Worldwatch Institute
From Reigniting an Interest in Local Food by Danielle Nierenberg:
After journalism school in Senegal, Seck Madieng worked for the government. But he wanted to do “something real. I didn’t want to be a bureaucrat.” He left his job and started AgriInfos, the only Senegalese newspaper to focus entirely on agriculture, food, and healthy diets. “I’m interested in going into villages, talking to farmers, seeing how they work, how they eat. I’m trying to understand why they are poor and why they are hungry,” says Madieng.
In 2007, Madieng, along with local chef Bineta Diallo, started the Mangeons Local (Eat Locally) project in two schools in Dakar. Their goals? To teach students how foods were made and who grew and prepared them. Most urban residents in Dakar depend on foods made not in Senegal, but from Europe.
But their lessons aren’t just theoretical, they also teach students how to cook. According to Diallo, for many students it’s the first time some students have ever prepared or cooked food. Instead of baguettes and imported canned foods, the children are learning how to cook cereals and grains, including local rice varieties, fonio (a small grain typically used in couscous), millet, and sorghum. And rather than drinking milk out of boxes imported from Amsterdam, they’re learning how good local milk can taste, as well as all of the things that can be made from dairy products, including crème, cheese, and butter.
Children are the best communication vehicles to parents, according to Madieng and Diallo. They bring the skills they learn at school home, helping to improve their families’ diets. Mangeons Local also celebrates at the end of the school year with a big party highlighting local foods that parents, students, teachers, and the community can all attend. In addition to local food and juices, they play music from Senegalese musicians and singers, including Grammy winner Youssou N’Dour and Ismael Lo, and Bill Yiakhou, who all sing about agriculture.
Mangeons Local gets some support from Slow Food International, but all the staff are volunteers, which limits the number of schools who can participate in the program.
Original article by Danielle Nierenberg.
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Sharing Knowledge: Farmer-to-farmer videos
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on July 5th, 2010
Source: Nourishing the Planet: Worldwatch Institute
From “Innovation of the Week: Messages From One Rice Farmer to Another” by Alex Tung:
Some 80 percent of the world’s rice production is grown by smallholder farmers in developing countries, according to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). From Bangladesh to Benin, these farmers continue to develop different solutions to improve the process of rice production. These methods include using flotation to sort seeds, and parboiling, which removes impurities and reduces grain breakage. The Africa Rice Centre (AfricaRice) has developed a simple solution to help farmers share this knowledge: Farmer to farmer videos
Working with researchers, rice farmers and processors, they have developed a series of videos to instruct farmers, including, manual seed sorting manually and by flotation, seed drying and preservation in Bangladesh; rice quality and parboiling in Benin; land preparation for planting rice in Burkina Faso; and seedbed preparation, transplanting, weeding and soil fertility management in Mali.
Farmers in Guinea watched videos of Bangladeshi women creating solutions to improve the quality of farm-saved rice-seed. “The farmers pay a lot of attention to the quality of their seed that they store for the next season,” said Louis Béavogui, researcher at the Institut de recherche agronomique de Guinée (IRAG). “Watching the videos on seed has stimulated them to start looking for local solutions to common problems that farmers face. It is by drawing on local knowledge that sustainable solutions can often be found at almost no cost.”
To pique farmers’ interest in the project, AfricaRice researchers approach them with videos on topics relevant to that particular region. And farmers are involved in the production of the videos from the very beginning, helping researchers decide which methods should be highlighted. Edith Dah Tossounon, chairperson from a rice processing group in Southern Benin, was one of the many women who demonstrated how to parboil rice in a video.
The strong presence of women in the videos also helps local NGOs and extension offices—which tend to be made up mostly of male agents—engage women’s groups. A survey of 160 women in Central Benin comparing the use of video with conventional training workshops showed that videos reached 74 percent of women compared with 27 percent in conventional training. Women who watched the videos worked with NGOs to formulate requests for training in building improved stoves and to seek financial assistance to buy inputs such as paddy rice and improved parboilers that allow rice to stay above the water during steaming, so more nutritional value is preserved. More than 95 percent of those who watched the video adopted drying their rice on tarpaulins and removed their shoes before stirring the rice to preserve cleanliness and avoid contamination, compared to about 50 percent of those who only received traditional training. In addition, illiterate woman could easily learn from the simple language and clear visuals of the examples shown in the videos.
Read the full article by Alex Tung, and for more about innovative ways to share knowledge among rural populations, see Acting it Out For Advocacy.
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Libraries as Virtual Supermarkets: Food Security Innovation
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on June 11th, 2010
Source: Sustainable Cities Collective
From “Libraries as food desert oases” by DNaim:
NPR reports on a clever strategy being rolled out in Baltimore to provide fresh food to underserved neighborhoods. It’s being dubbed the Virtual Supermarket. Two library branches have been selected in urban locations where the nearest grocery store is basically inaccessible to anyone without a vehicle. The city public health department helps residents place food orders online using the library computers, and the bag of groceries is delivered [to the library for pick-up] the next day from a local grocer.
This program is up and running with the help of a $60,000 federal stimulus grant. According to the NPR story, there are currently a couple of dozen subscribers. This number may grow as people wade into the technology.
There’s so much to appreciate about this innovative approach to food access. Delivery costs are held down, because the the orders are aggregated for each day and condensed into a single drop-off point. Libraries get to broaden their horizons a bit, a trend Wendy Waters discussed a little while ago. Some more assistance with computers can only help knock the digital divide down a notch. And, of course, more people get to enjoy the nutritional food at fair prices most of us take for granted.
The department plans to expand Virtual Supermarket to other sites with additional programming, such as cooking demonstrations. Apparently, other cities are watching all of this very closely. Philadelphia has long been known for being on the forefront of food access solutions, but it looks like Baltimore is finding it’s own niche.
Read this article by DNaim on Sustainable Cities Collective, or the original article on NPR.
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Fighting Food Deserts: Integrated Farms and Housing, South Bronx NY
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on January 15th, 2010
Source: SustainWeb
The Blue Sea Development Corporation has a reputation for integrating emerging environmental technologies into high quality, affordable housing developments across New York City. Their new state of the art affordable housing complex planned for the South Bronx, NY, will feature a 10,000 square feet (930 sq meters) fully integrated rooftop farm, designed by BrightFarm Systems.
The greenhouse will use left-over heat from the residential portion of the building and water harvested from the greenhouse roof. The farm will be used to provide fresh, perishable vegetables to a local non-profit food cooperative. The rooftop farm will be able to supply enough produce to meet the annual fresh vegetable needs of up to 450 people. Like many inner city, low income communities, the South Bronx suffers from food deserts, where residents lack access to fresh vegetables at affordable prices.
The rooftop farm will make a significant contribution to food access and public health in the neighborhood.
Source: SustainWeb
Toronto Food Policy Council- An Example for the World
Posted in Models, RDAG by Devin Maeztri on April 16th, 2009
The City of Toronto created the Toronto Food Policy Council (TFPC) in 1991 in the absence of federal and provincial leadership on food security.
TFPC partners with business and community groups (including City Councillors and volunteer representatives from consumer, business, farm, labour, multicultural, anti-hunger advocacy, faith, and community development groups) to develop policies and programs promoting food security – the TFPC has been instrumental in putting Food Security and Food Policy development squarely on the municipal agenda in Toronto
Fish and food security
Posted in Research by Devin Maeztri on December 8th, 2008
This abstract was recently listed on Australian Policy Online. To see the original document visit Fish and food security.
Fish and food security
Johann Bell / Secretariat of the Pacific Community
Posted: 21-11-2008
The right to food security is central to human development and many of the major human rights treaties. It is also implicit in Goal 1 of the Millennium Development Goals – eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Food security is under threat in the Pacific. Agricultural production is not keeping pace with population growth and two thirds of Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) are now net importers of food. Regrettably, the low nutritional quality of many of these imports has increased the incidence of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.