Today is World Food Day. But, I wonder, do the farmers of Africa know it? Actually, for them, every day is World Food Day. Food – growing it, scraping together enough money to buy it – is their daily preoccupation, a primal obsession. Africa’s smallholder farmers – the most common occupation on the continent –
The most difficult conversations were about the malnourished children. “When you, as a parent, see your child not eating enough to be satisfied, you are hurt, but you are not in a position to control the situation,” Zipporah Biketi told me when we first met in western Kenya last year. Her two-year-old son David was
How African communities are making sweet potatoes look good I arrived in the village of Nhazombe, Mozambique, in the middle of an orange mania. A troupe of women draped in bright orange cloth came dancing down the main road. They were singing an Ode to Orange: A farmer selling sweet potatoes in Tanzania “Always give
Francis Mamati was gobsmacked by what he heard. Why would they say that?, he wondered. Sitting under a shade tree in front of his little house in western Kenya, Francis had just been told that there are people who think African smallholder farmers are better off planting seeds saved from previous harvests than planting newer,
The London Summer Olympics have been chock full of wondrous achievements and inspiring moments: Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Sarah Attar, Oscar Pistorius, an impressive roster of African athletes rising from deep poverty to the medal platform. Just imagine the journey from Somalia or Sudan to a stadium filled with 80,000 people, flashbulbs sparkling like stars.
This piece by Roger Thurow was originally posted in Chicago Council Global Food for Thought blog. Are we paying attention now? The shriveled corn and wilting beans and severely parched soil of the U.S. farm belt are trying to tell us something: focus on the global food chain. More than half of U.S. counties have
As we have heard during this week’s international conference in Washington, D.C., there has been wondrous progress on the AIDS treatment front since President George W. Bush launched the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) nearly a decade ago. At that time, there were only about 50,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa receiving the life-saving
The farmer fell to his knees, landing hard on the parched soil, and raised his arms to heaven. “God, have mercy on us,” he prayed, opening his palms to his field. “Provide us with the rain, for when it rains enough, the dirt will easily break. And the seeds will germinate and push up through
The following series of posts are excerpts and adaptations from Roger Thurow’s new book, The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change. The book follows the lives of four smallholder farmers in western Kenya. These farmers are all enrolled in One Acre Fund, an innovative agriculture organization
The following series of posts are excerpts and adaptations from Roger Thurow’s new book, The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change. The book follows the lives of four smallholder farmers in western Kenya. These farmers are all enrolled in One Acre Fund, an innovative agriculture organization
The following series of posts are excerpts and adaptations from Roger Thurow’s new book, The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change. The book follows the lives of four smallholder farmers in western Kenya. These farmers are all enrolled in One Acre Fund, an innovative agriculture organization
The following series of posts are excerpts and adaptations from Roger Thurow’s new book, The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change. The book follows the lives of four smallholder farmers in western Kenya. These farmers are all enrolled in One Acre Fund, an innovative agriculture organization
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