Food
This is what happens when you give small farmers the confidence their food will sell
We can make food aid more sustainable not by giving away Western food, but by working with local farmers and creating a market for their crops in the region. ONE Agriculture Fellow Roger Thurow reports.
Ten years after the Ethiopian famine of 2003, when international food aid rushed in to feed 14 million people, another World Food Program (WFP) tent has been erected on an open field. But this isn’t a scene of food distribution. It is a scene of food purchase.
Leonida and her surplus food, stored in this hut. If farmers have the confidence their food will get sold, they will grow more. Photo: Roger Thurow
The action happens on the grounds of the Sidama Elto Farmers’ Cooperative Union in Awassa, Ethiopia. Sidama Elto is one of 16 cooperative unions in Ethiopia that have signed forward contracts with the World Food Programme for the purchase of more than 28,000 metric tons of maize grown by their smallholder farmer members. The maize, which is part of 112,000 tons of food the World Food Programme purchased in Ethiopia last year, will be used for relief distributions in the country. Ten years ago, many of those farmers and their families were receiving food aid from the World Food Programme.
One of the major lessons in agricultural development over the past decade is this: markets matter. The 2003 famine tragically, and incomprehensibly, followed two years of bumper harvests in Ethiopia. The surplus production overwhelmed the country’s weak and inefficient markets. There were no export channels; the domestic market’s ability to absorb the harvests was crippled by woeful infrastructure. The food piled up on farms and prices collapsed, upwards of 80% in some areas. Farmers lost incentive to plant the next year. Then the drought hit, and feast turned to famine. The markets had failed before the weather did.
That gobsmacking turnaround triggered a reversal of the neglect of agricultural development that had set in since the 1980s, as I noted in my TedxChange talk last month. In the past decade, science and research geared toward improving the work of smallholder farmers (who produce the majority of the food grown in the developing world) have been reinvigorated; so too have trade and business efforts accelerated to provide greater market incentives and opportunities for the farmers. Prior to 2003, boosting agricultural production – growing more food — was the primary focus and developing markets was considered to be a “second-generation problem.” Now, markets share top billing with production, as it should; markets provide incentive to produce more.
In Ethiopia, it started with the creation of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange in the wake of the famine. Now, the mantra spreads, in radio dramas, government pronouncements, business negotiations: If you grow it, someone will buy it.
The World Food Programme’s partnership with Sidama Elto is part of its Purchase for Progress (P4P) programme, which uses the World Food Programme’s purchasing power to create markets for smallholder farmers. Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and implemented in collaboration with the government of Ethiopia through the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), P4P works with the farmers to improve the quality of their crops and the post-harvest handling.
Simiret Simeno, deputy manager of Sidama Elto, says that for the first time its 13,000 farmer members see that better quality can bring better prices. And they can also see their contribution to healthier communities, as one of the markets is an expanding network of school feeding programs supplied by locally grown crops rather than food being shipped in from abroad.
The ultimate goal of the World Food Programme purchases is to demonstrate to commercial buyers that smallholder farmers can reliably produce high-quality food worthy of their business. Sustainable success here could also bear witness to the potential impact of President Obama’s proposed food aid reform, which would allow for nearly half of the US food aid budget to be used to buy food nearer to the hunger crises – providing markets for smallholder farmers — rather than shipping it all the way from American farms (as has been the US policy for decades).
These public-private ventures bring both maturity and modernisation to markets that hadn’t changed much for centuries. Working with local banks and donor governments, P4P has introduced forward contracts to participating cooperatives and smallholder farmers. The ATA has also been crafting links between farmers and commercial buyers of several crops, like teff, barley, sesame and chickpeas.
Above all, says Khalid Bomba, the chief executive officer of ATA, “Smallholder farmers need confidence that there will be buyers for what they grow.”
And confidence that the misery of 2003 – the misery of failed markets — won’t happen again.
This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, marking the occasion of its annual Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., which will be held on May 21st. For more information on the symposium, click here. Follow @GlobalAgDev and use #globalag on Twitter to join the conversation on May 21.
Want to do more? Tell world leaders to make measurable commitments to reduce chronic child malnutrition for 25 million children. Sign the petition here.
How Grow Africa could be a game changer for African farming and business
ONE US Policy Manager David Hong and ONE Africa Deputy Director Nachilala Nkombo look at the progress made by Grow Africa in the last year.
Today, five African heads of state, four G8 development ministers, and over 100 private sector companies will meet in Cape Town, South Africa at the World Economic Forum on Africa to assess Grow Africa’s work in 2012, the partnership’s first full year in business.
First, here’s a little background. Two years ago, the African Union Commission, New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) agency, and the World Economic Forum combined forces to create a new partnership, Grow Africa, which aims to reduce poverty by accelerating private sector investment in African agriculture.
The partnership is led by the organisations above, and includes eight member countries and various stakeholders such as host governments, companies involved in investment, civil society, research institutions, and farmer organisations.
Here at ONE, we’re taking this opportunity to weigh in on Grow Africa’s first annual report. Overall, the initiative made significant progress last year, especially given the small size of its team. ONE hopes for further and more robust reporting in the coming years so the partnership can demonstrate its value and defend its model. Annual reporting gives Grow Africa an opportunity to demonstrate lessons learned over the past year and what challenges lay ahead.
Here are the headlines:
- 97 commitments from 62 companies, of which 39 based are in Africa
- More than $60 million invested in activities that incorporate smallholder farmers
- 270,000 metric tons of commodities sourced within partner countries
- Equivalent of around $300 million in sales from these farmers
- Almost 800,000 smallholders reached with a mix of training, sourcing, and service provision
Obviously, there is a lot to commend here. Thousands of smallholders are being incorporated into commercial food supply chains where they’re growing more food and generating more income for their families. If Grow Africa adds further measures to increase transparency and expand reporting of poverty reduction indicators, the partnership could change the game for farmers and businesses.
For more information on Grow Africa’s report and ONE’s analysis, check out this policy brief.
Watch this and you’ll understand why hunger still exists
After journalist-turned-agriculture activist Roger Thurow witnessed the 2003 famine in Ethiopia first hand, he dropped everything and devoted his life to answering this mind-boggling question: Why are Africa’s small farmers some of the continent’s hungriest people?
Kudos to Roger for not only being brave enough to ask this question, but for doing all the research to be able to answer it, too. I’ve worked with Roger for over a year now at ONE (and read both his books too) – and this TEDx Talk from him brought tears to my eyes. I have never seen such die-hard passion and sincerity in an activist until now, and I am proud to say I work with him.
Please find 20 minutes today to watch this video – then let him know what you think in a comment below.
Did Roger’s TEDx Talk inspire you? In just a few weeks world leaders are meeting in the UK to make big decisions on global nutrition, and we need your help to call for the right action. It could help 25 million children escape malnutrition by 2016 and grow up to reach their full potential.
How to start the fight for global nutrition in Brussels? Free chilli!
ONE staff Tamira and Eloise hit the streets of Brussels with our nutrition campaign and free veggie chilli. Photo: ONE
For the launch of our global nutrition campaign in Brussels, a team of volunteers and ONE staff took the food fight to the streets. Having slaved over hot stoves the evening before, we hit the pavement with the best weapon a poverty-fighting foodie could ask for: vegetarian chilli.
ONE member Natasa hands out veggie chilli and signs up support for our global nutrition campaign. Photo: ONE
We set our eyes on Place du Luxembourg, directly across from the European Parliament.
Armed with 100 hot cups of chilli at lunchtime, we went in search of hungry people. The masses welcomed us with open arms and eagerly took action by signing our petition.
This year alone over 2 million people will die as a result of being obese and over 2 million children will die from undernutrition.
Regardless of where in the world we live, nutrition should always be at the top of the agenda.
It’s time to save millions of lives.
Are you part of the fight for global nutrition yet? Join us!
Why Jamie Oliver wants you to join the global food revolution
I wanted to take some time to write to you about something close to my heart – food. But it’s not just close to my heart, it’s at the heart of every family and has a prime place in our homes. It can bind us to the best bits of life.
But right now we are living an awful reality. The food we eat – because it often lacks the proper nutrients – is killing us! Whether you’re in Tanzania or Texas, getting access to nutritious food for yourself or your family has become a daily battle. We are starved of food education and, as a result, don’t know what’s good for us and what’s not anymore.
This year alone over 2 million people will die because they are obese, while over 2 million children will die from malnutrition. That is unacceptable, and something has to be done.
The ONE Campaign and my Food Revolution Day have a lot in common. First, we don’t stay quiet. We refuse to sit back and let things like this go on. We spread the word and get messages about good food education and food practices out there, both locally and globally.
In a few weeks the leaders of the world will get together at a food summit, so we need to form one voice – one very loud, very proud voice. This is a chance to make a difference guys. It’s time for world leaders to realise that what we are eating is killing us, and that they have the power to stop it. Food is at the top of my agenda, it’s at the top of yours, and it’s time it goes to the top of theirs.
This is message we are sending them: World Leaders, help 25 million children reach their full potential by making measurable commitments to reduce chronic malnutrition by 2016.
I’m not a doctor. I’m a chef. I don’t have expensive equipment or medicine. I just use information, education and my voice. So I need you to join me if we want to be heard.
Whether you are fighting poverty and hunger, or obesity and diet-related disease, we need to change the way we think about food. It’s time for a food revolution. We can save millions of lives.
Join me in asking our leaders to make nutrition a priority today.
Jamie Oliver is a chef, campaigner and ONE Member
46 days to start a global food revolution
Today we are calling on you to join a global food revolution. In just 46 days, decision makers are coming together for a food summit in London ahead of the G8 meeting in Northern Ireland. This is the biggest opportunity in a decade to get some serious action taken on nutrition, an issue that has been neglected for too long.
A tiny percentage of the money that the world spends on helping the poorest people improve their lives goes towards better nutrition – less than 0.3%. Which seems incredible when 40% of children in Africa are so malnourished that they will never fully thrive and reach their full physical and mental potential.
We all know what it’s like to have dreams, imagine if something as simple as adequate nutrition meant you never quite made them a reality. Tragically for 2.4million of those children every year, malnutrition also claims their lives.
So why are we not doing more to make nutrition a priority? Part of the problem is that the issue is so broad that it becomes everyone’s job and no-ones – intersecting with health, agriculture, social protection and emergency response programmes. But political will to invest in nutrition is also lacking, and that’s where you can really help.
With the right action, we know that world leaders can lift 25 million children out of malnutrition by 2016, so they can go on and reach their full potential. Here’s the plan:
Don’t be fooled by the notepad, our policy experts have been working hard to make sure we’re campaigning for the changes that will have the most impact, and will be lobbying decision makers relentlessly about the complicated small print. But having hundreds of thousands of ONE members standing firm behind them will make a huge difference and send a message to leaders that they can’t ignore nutrition any longer.
We need global action urgently, which is why we’ve joined forces with Jamie Oliver to show that better nutrition is the key to both obesity and malnutrition. Together we’re starting a Global Food Revolution.
Sign the Global Food Revolution petition now, then spread the word. We’ve got just 46 days to make it happen.
Infographic: Who is investing in African agriculture?
A decade ago, African leaders made a bold commitment to reverse decades of neglect of the agriculture sector. Big promises were made by both African countries and international donors – but have they been kept?
Today ONE launches a brand new report which answers this question.
A Growing Opportunity: Measuring Investments in African Agriculture takes a closer look at who’s leading the way and who needs to do more. Read the report, or get the headline findings in this infographic.
VIDEO: Powder paint fight for global hunger
Young activists in the UK have been getting messy to raise awareness about the biggest ever national campaign to end global hunger.
Ten points if you recognised the Rudyard Kipling poem If which has been re-worked for this film, and ten bonus rock-geek points if you knew that alternative metal band Enter Shikari provided the soundtrack and voiceover.
Enough Food for Everyone IF is a movement of over 100 organisations, including ONE, who have come together in 2013 to influence a series of big opportunities in the UK that could kick start the end of global hunger – including the G8 Summit which is being held in Northern Ireland in June.
The message is simple: there is enough food in the world for everyone, but not everyone has enough food to eat. The solutions to end global hunger are there, but we need to come together and make world leaders act if it’s ever going to become a reality.
If you’re 16-25 there are three exciting campaign missions to get involved in, including a creative challenge that led this group of activists to hold the paint fight. Find out more and download the campaign toolkit.
And if you are over 25 and feeling really annoyed that someone has decided you’re too old to throw paint and like alternative metal, you can either join in anyway (we won’t tell), or see what else you can do to support the campaign.
VIDEO: What IF the G8 were kids?
In this new video from the Enough Food for Everyone IF coalition, the G8 Summit has been taken over by kids. Can they solve the problem of global hunger?
It seems crazy that there is enough food for everyone in the world, but nearly one billion people are hungry.
ONE is an international member of Enough Food for Everyone IF, a group of over 100 organisations who have come together to make 2013 the beginning of the end of global hunger.
If you think these kids have got the right idea about ending global hunger, make sure you share the film!
Looking back at the IF campaign launch in London
Guest post from ONE member Francesca Washtell:
Last Wednesday ONE joined together with leading UK charities at Somerset House in London to launch the new Enough Food For Everyone IF campaign, aiming to make this year the beginning of the end of global hunger.
It’s a bold campaign- can we ever mark a single year as the one in which we can start to end global hunger? A few of us got to quiz ONE staff on this issue and the nature of the campaign when we met at ONE London office before heading down to Somerset House. It’s worth pointing out that there isn’t a typical kind of ONE campaigner. We come from all backgrounds- from medical students to retirees, from those involved for two weeks to those who’ve committed their time for ONE and its predecessor campaigns for almost a decade. For us it’s the issues that matter, so there are no criteria we have to meet and no subject we have to have studied before we got here.
ONE’s approach will emphasise areas it has already been extremely active in- particularly supporting the agricultural, aid and transparency goals of the IF campaign. Talking to ONE staff they explained how versatile the campaign is, and how every organisation involved will be able to focus on different issues that all feed in to the wider goal.
If I had any reservations about the campaign beforehand, it was this conversation that made me the most optimistic. The best international campaigns are typically very inclusive, allowing all the organisations involved and, most importantly, their supporters, to work towards a goal from different angles, emphasising each organisation’s strengths in the process. Global hunger is a varied and complex process, and ending it will never just be about fixing a single cause. As the biggest campaign since 2005’s Make Poverty History, the strength of Enough Food For Everyone IF’s will be in its breadth.
Nothing compares to actually being there at a launch- even when it’s during the coldest, snowiest weeks the UK has seen this winter! There were impressive fact-filled animations and video messages from Bill Gates and activist celebrities such as Orlando Bloom and David Harewood, and the whole event made Twitter go pretty crazy. If you watched it live online you’ll have seen that one of the key speakers of the evening was Bill Nighy. No one rallies the troops quite like Bill- he’s a celebrity who seems to completely understand the urgency and weight that campaigns like these carry.
Everyone involved sees the problem with the world producing enough food, but not everyone having enough to eat. By the end of the evening our feet were pretty cold, but it was worth it to stand there and be a part of the launch. IF will have many channels- we can use 2013 to say there will be Enough Food For Everyone IF politicians start listening, land grabs are stopped and governments and businesses start enforcing the right levels of tax and transparency. Going back to my original question, can we really single out 2013 as the year to start ending global hunger? From the support we saw last Wednesday and the way the campaign will work, I think we’re in with a very good chance. It’s still and IF now, but by the end of the year I hope we MAKE it happen.
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: Ethiopia, Food, Global Food Revolution, Nutrition, Nutrition for Growth, Trade