José Graziano da Silva on Seed Security

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Director General Visits the Vault from Crop Trust on Vimeo.

27 August 2015, Svalbard, Norway - Varieties of one of the world’s most important staple crops will be stored for perpetuity deep in the Arctic ice today. José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is joining scientific experts and delegations from Peru, Costa Rica and Norway to witness a ceremony here this afternoon that will help to preserve these vital crops for future generations.

A TED Classic: Cary Fowler - One seed at a time, protecting the future of food

Promoting Agricultural Development with Video Technology

Readers of this blog are probably familiar with the impressive work of Digital Green, an international NGO which uses pico projectors to disseminate extension messages. Their work started in India and spread quickly to other countries in Africa and elsewhere. Today, they are reaching almost 90,000 farmers with more than 2,000 videos. The impact of their work has attracted the attention of donors and practitioners as we look for ways to improve the intake of extension messages. Governments are also intrigued by the possibilities of equipping extension agents with DG's approach.  In early 2014, the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture held a series of training workshops with extension staff to pilot video-facilitated extension in four regions of the country.

FHI360's Integrating Low-Cost Video into Agricultural Development Projects: A Toolkit for Practitioners, is an excellent resource for those considering the use of video platforms to strengthen behavior change messages. The toolkit allows practitioners to develop a more systematic approach to use low-cost video as one of the mediums through which they share information with farmers.

The toolkit provides the information in six modules, starting with examples on how video technology is currently being used. Besides showcasing the work of Digital Green, the guide also describes the work of InsightShare, One Media Player Per Trainer (OMPT), and Agro-Insight, a Belgium enterprise, also producing professional videos on various agriculture topics. Agro-Insight videos can be streamed at http://www.accessagriculture.org/ or purchased for institutional used.

Although briefly discussed, the guide elaborates on the benefit of multimedia learning, and how a combination of visual and audio inputs increases the effectiveness of your messages (see graph).

The subsequent modules walk practitioners through the process of deciding if video is the right approach, and if so, how to create, disseminate, and track video platforms.  The final module provides excellent information about the technical considerations for camcorders, projectors, and other types of software and hardware needed for these types of projects. 

Promoting Community Health Workers (CHWs)

Development Boy - A Parody Produced by Some Classmates

Al Jazeera's Inside Story on the Politics of Global Food Security

Egypt and its Forgotten Farmers

In an excellent mini-documentary, PBS explores Egyp's agriculture sector and its impact of  the revolution. The film explores how disfranchised farmers had to migrate to the urban centers after export-oriented policies left little of their livelihoods after access to capital and water was redirected to the well-connected. Poor farmers, and urban consumers tired of increasing food prices, provided the fuel that toppled Mubarak.

Watch The Role of Rising Food Prices in Egypt's Revolution on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

In a short report, BBC gives us an update on how those poor farmers' have been doing since the revolution. Unfortunately, despite promises from the new government, little has changed.

'World needs to work together to feed itself' - Cargill's Greg Page

In a BBC interview Cargill chief executive Greg Page talks about the importance of the global food system, giving the example of how Brazilian feed was key for the American livestock industry during last year's drought. 

Mark Lynas Speech on GMOs

Mark Lynas' video has been circulating the blogosphere for a while now. For those of you seeing this for the first time, Mr. Lynas presents a robust defense of biotechnology and GMOs at a lecture to Oxford Farming Conference in 3 January 2013. What made so popular though, was the fact that Mr. Lynas was a former anti-GMO crusader, publishing books against it and spreading myths about the technology. Now, in a complete reversal, he tells his the world audience how he was dead wrong to oppose biotechnology.

Also, don't forget to check The Economist debate about whether biotechnology and sustainable agriculture are complementary or contradictory. 

Four Years into Purchase for Progress

See below a good overview about the United Nations World Food Program approach to local procurement - the Purchase for Progress or P4F. This is an excellent model to replicate as the Congress considers reforming food aid in its 2012 farm bill negotiations. 

Solving the Agriculture-Nutrition Equation

Jess Fanzo in her awesome blog "You Are What You Eat" wrote back in Agust that the understanding of the connections between agriculture and nutrition and health remains the "Holy Gray of Nutrition." She compiled a  broad list of on-going research and published papers on the subject with the conclusion that, well, there isn't one yet. The casual connections between agriculture and nutrition remain elusive at best.

This may change soon. A  DFID-funded report reviewed 151 research projects on how we can use agriculture to use nutrition. Also, FAO just drafted a paper on the " The Guiding Principles on Agriculture Programming for Nutrition." And fresh from the oven, the World Bank hosted an event earlier this week to present a recent discussion paper in Prioritizing Nutrition in Agriculture and Rural Development. One of the presentation's concluding remarks is that while there is a need for more research, we already have sufficient evidence to move ahead with ag projects that we know will have a positive impact on nutrition.
See below the video of the presentation.

  

UN Secretary General’s Zero Hunger Challenge:

100% access to adequate food all year round

Enabling all people to access the food they need at all times through nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems, marketing, decent and productive employment, a social protection floor, targeted safety nets and food assistance; boosting food supply from local producers;

through open, fair and well-functioning markets and trade policies at local, regional and international level, preventing excessive food price volatility.

Zero stunted children less than 2 years

Ensuring universal access to nutritious food in the 1000-day window of opportunity between the start of pregnancy and a child’s second birthday, supported by nutrition-sensitive health care, water, sanitation, education and specific nutrition interventions, coupled with initiatives that enable empowerment of women, as encouraged within the Movement for Scaling Up Nutrition.

All food systems are sustainable

Ensuring that all farmers, agribusinesses, cooperatives, governments, unions and civil society establish standards for sustainability; verifying their observance and being accountable for them; encouraging and rewarding universal adoption of sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture practices; pursuing cross-sectoral policy coherence (encompassing energy, land use, water and climate); implementing responsible governance of land, fisheries and forests.

100% increase in smallholder productivity and income

Reducing rural poverty and improving wellbeing through encouraging decent work, and increasing smallholders’ income; empowering women, small farmers, fishers, pastoralists, young people, farmer organizations, indigenous people and their communities; supporting agricultural

research and innovation; improving land tenure, access to assets and to natural resources, making sure that all investments in agriculture and value chains are responsible and accountable; developing multidimensional indicators for people’s resilience and wellbeing.

Zero loss or waste of food

Minimizing food losses during storage and transport, and waste of food by retailers and consumers; empowering consumer choice through appropriate labeling; commitments by producers, retailers and consumers within all nations; achieving progress through financial incentives, collective pledges, locally-relevant technologies and changed behavior.

IFPRI'S Food Policy Work in Plain Words

NYT: Drought & the American Farmer

An excellent short video portraying the difficulties many American farmers are facing right now:

Communicating Nutrition: From London to Maputo

One of the things that went unnoticed about the London Olympics was a great event organized by DFID and the British government, showcasing the importance of tacking global chronic malnutrition. This was part of a larger effort coordinated by the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement.

Mozambique's agriculture minister attended the event and we helped draft his remarks arguing for a better integration of agriculture and nutrition. Unfortunately, aside from some coverage by The Guardian, and other media outlets, little was mentioned about the event on the press.

Although it's getting better, this is a difficult problem those working on global nutrition continue to face: creating a sense of urgency about stunting and what to do about it. As opposed to the powerful images of wasting or starvation, stunted children appear 'normal' and their short height for their age is often attributed to cultural factors.  I would often hear that misconception while working in Nicaragua where indigenous children are thought to be shorter 'by nature.' However, I was surprise to hear the same argument it once again here in Mozambique. (The picture on the right compares Guatemalan children with the height of their counterpart raised in the US)

Currently, we're working on developing a communication strategy that addresses the issue of poor nutrition communication. The government strategy to tackle stunting -the PAMRDC- was approved two years ago and there is a sense that we're losing momentum. With the exception of one, none of the provinces have started implementing the plan. That's why it's really important to reengage politicians and policy makers about the importance of addressing chronic malnutrition with a well-defined advocacy and communication strategy.

The arsenal to do this already exists. There are robust studies that link stunting to adult labor productivity and income generation - an argument that a finance minister will likely entertain. There is also plenty of evidence about how chronic malnutrition exacerbates child illnesses and increases mortality rates. Officials at the ministry of health will definitely pay attention to that. Similarly, underfunded institution working on water and sanitation and school feeding programs will also love to hear about how their work impacts nutrition.

And then there is also the broader message about keeping a nation well feed, ensuring that everyone has access to the most basic need - adequate food. In a country that experienced food riots when the price of bread went up just two years ago, this particular message resonates well with voters and politicians. With rural poverty on the rise and early signs of a resource curse, Mozambicans are increasingly worried about the price of food and politicians are taking note.

Despite all these rock solid arguments and incentives, getting all the organizations and institutions together and have them agreed on the key messages we want to send across remains a monumental challenge. Food security in this country continues to be about increasing yields and making food more available. But just the fact Nampula - the country's bread basket - has the second highest rate of stunting should put serious question marks on this approach.

The other challenge is to grab politician's short attention span. They are interested in the silver bullets and the buzz of the day. They love to sign lofty plans and strategies but when it comes to allocating the funds to implement, they can't find the pen to sign the check. As I said on my previous post, Mozambique is filled with strategies that do not materialized and are rather the reflection of demanding donors.

So yes, by championing their own approach and coordinating little with others of their kind, donors don't make things easier either. A recent article by Joseph Hanlon explores these issues of conflicting approaches. And while I don't agree with the article's main point - that the country has to focus on small holders at the expense of neglecting international agricultural investment - his point about fleeting donor interest is well taken.

We'll continue working on this communication and advocacy strategy. In the meantime, check out the video below showing Prime Minister Cameron describing the need for focusing on global nutrition - an excellent example of an engaged leader that understand well global nutrition.

PBS's New Hour on Program to Help African Farmers Reach New Markets

Watch Business Fund Puts African Farmers on Road to Market on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

A História da Agricultura e a Economia Verde

Check out the English version HERE of this great video

Brazil's Most Valuable Export: Fome Zero and its Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos da Agricultura Familiar (PAA)

With funding from Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), the country's foreign aid agency,  WFP and FAO are rolling out a new food security program modeled after the successful Programa de  Aquisição de Alimentos da Agricultura Familiar (PAA). PAA, Family Agriculture Food Procurement Program, connects smallholder farmers with school feeding programs by purchasing their products at a subsidized price. In addition, PAA gives farmers access to credit, training, and technical advice. 

The government committed 2.3 million dollars for pilot projects in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal. According the WFP, these funds will strengthen their ongoing initiative on local procurement called P4P.

This is also the latest example of the growing south-to-south cooperation between Brazil and the rest of the developing world. In addition to private investments in soybean cultivation in Mozambique, this year the Brazilian government formed an alliance with WFP to open the Center of Excellence against Hunger. The goal of this initiative is the strengthen developing countries' capacity to design and carry out effective programs against food insecurity and malnutrition, with special emphasis on school feeding. Watch WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran describe the Center.

Gordon Conway on the Legacy of Chambers and a must have Practicioner Guide

One of my many class assignments of my masters program, is a paper on a rural development theme. I decided to take a closer look to the issue of integrated development and its many semantic variations one comes across when reviewing the literature. I'm particularly interested in researching how the integrated approach to development has evolved since the post-war era.

Some questions I want to answer are:  why was big push for integrated development of the 70s, promoted by the World Bank and others, put aside for a more sectoral approach? What has changed in terms of technology, knowledge, governance, and other micro and macro factors that merit a closer reexamination to this approach as perhaps the most viable when implementing development interventions today? Has the debate followed a similar path in the humanitarian field? I'll be blogging about these questions and others, as I try to link my academic assignments to this blog. 

In any case, I wanted to share with you two things that I came accross today while doing research for the paper:

1) The first one is a wonderful guide put together by the Women's Refugee Commission, on Building Livelihood. This guide is one of the best toolkits practicioners working on both humanitarian and development context can use to access applicable information on steps to follow when implementing livelihoods strategies. One of the chapters is on supporting agricultural interventions. It describes the different assessments and analysis one must carry out to ensure a successful implementation of the program.

2) The second link I wanted to share is a lecture professor Gordon Conway, an expert on agricultural ecology and professor at the Imperial College of London, gave on the work of Robert Chambers. Chambers, one of the most renowned development scholars and author of the seminal "Rural Development: Putting the First Last" was one of the leading voices on the importance of engaging farmers in a significant way - one in which their voice shapes the nature of the intervention. In the video below,  Conway discusses the legacy to Chamber's work and presents the current challenges the world faces in issues of food security.

"We have to keep remembering that there is a huge private sector in Africa and Asia; is called farmers...and they deal in the private sector, and they need incomes. It's not just sustainable existence, it's sustainable development we are after" Gordon Conway 

Farming for Women Victims of Rape in DR Congo

Check this short documentary produced by Al Jazeera Engligh about women victims of rape in DR Congo and how through agriculture they can get back in their feet.
Field of Hope - Witness - Al Jazeera English