The power of working together: International day of Cooperatives, July 2nd 2016

By Alice Marks, @alicemarks0

Camaraderie in South Sudan – Credit UN Photo, Isaac Billy

The International Day of Cooperatives is the perfect time to celebrate the power of pulling together in the face of adversity. Working together can create social capital that enables individuals to achieve goals that they may not be able to achieve alone. Although ‘Social capital’ might sound like something intangible, it has a huge value. It is a measurement of connections between people – the glue that binds people and the reason to work towards common goals. In other words, it’s the value of ‘who you know’ rather than ‘what you know’ and evidence shows that communities with high social capital are more able to become economically and sustainably prosperous.

A group of people that is cohesive, value each other and stick together through hardship, is more able to work together to overcome challenges. The ability to do this is particularly important for communities with low incomes, limited education and few physical assets because it can create a social safety net that helps mitigate shocks or stresses. This is where cooperatives can come in and form a framework through which people can unite under shared needs and aspirations. Agricultural cooperatives work in a number of ways that can be beneficial to individuals and communities. A group of farmers make a more attractive customer than a single farmer because they spread risk amongst them, so facilitating access to finance, agricultural inputs and external markets.

Cooperatives support one another

For example, the Association pour la vision des Eleves de Nyonirima (AVEN) is a group of twelve young men and women from northern Rwanda. The AVEN members decided to form a cooperative after participating in Technoserve’s STRYDE training program, which equips school-leavers with training in business management skills, financial literacy and personal development, then links them to financial services.

Sustainable water management in African agriculture

By Katrin Glatzel

Credit: Katrin Glatzel, 2015 (Senegal)

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where agriculture is predominantly rainfed, farmers’ access to water is often limited based on seasonal variation. Yet water scarcity in the region is not necessarily caused by a physical lack of water, but rather by an ‘economic water scarcity’. This implies that the necessary public investments in water resources and infrastructure are not substantial enough to meet water demands in an area where people do not have the means to make use of water sources on their own. In fact, in many parts of SSA there is plenty of water available. However, groundwater resources, such as aquifers, remain a relatively abundant yet underused resource, with less than 5% of the water used for irrigation coming from groundwater.

The challenge is therefore to increase the amount of available water that is ‘harvested’ for crop growth. Such water harvesting can be done at the field, farm or watershed level. In some places, there is a potential for groundwater extraction using boreholes. And research by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has shown that motor pumps have the potential to expand the amount of agricultural land irrigated during the dry season to 30 million hectares — four times the current area. There is urgent need to sustainably increase the amount of irrigation from the current 6% of arable land. Until then an estimated 200 million people in SSA – that is 18% of the continent’s population – face serious water shortages.

Furthermore, climate change and a growing population continue to pose additional challenges to water management in agriculture. Prolonged periods of drought in many parts of SSA are becoming increasingly frequent. This increases pressures on valuable water resources and agricultural irrigation. In response, water conservation policies, strategies, and activities such as water harvesting, are ever more important to manage and protect fresh water as a sustainable resource to meet current and future human demands.

Agriculture is in every SDG: Part 1

By Alice Marks

Skimming the eye across the colourful chart of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is easy to spot a couple which are intrinsically and directly linked to agriculture, but a closer look reveals that they are in fact all linked to agriculture. A healthy global agricultural sector underpins and supports so many aims of the SDGs that its development will be important for their overall success. As sustainable agriculture is essential for sustainable food systems and livelihoods, here is a breakdown of how agriculture, farming and nutrition fit into the first 7 goals

1. No Poverty

Over 70% of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas, and rely heavily on agriculture for their survival and livelihoods. According to the World Bank, evidence shows that GDP growth generated in agriculture has large benefits for the poor, and is at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth generated by other sectors. Particularly with investment and growth of sustainable value chains, agriculture can help to lift people out of poverty.

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

UN official stresses link between healthy soils, sustainable development as Global Soil Week starts, UN

US Announces Plans to Reduce Agricultural Carbon Emissions, The New York Times

Guest Commentary – Agriculture: The Common Thread Connecting the Sustainable Development Goals, Global Food for Thought

Lifting the lid on the household: A new way to measure individual deprivation, From Poverty to Power

New crop insurance math, new challenges for farmers, Politico

UN urged to demand free access to crop data, SciDev.Net

Fostering Economic Resilience, Greenpeace

Meeting the Global Food Demand of the Future by Engineering Crop Photosynthesis and Yield Potential, Long et al, 2015, Cell

Universities join efforts to combat climate change in East Africa, Daily Monitor

This Earth Day, think agriculture, Plantwise

The genome of cultivated sweet potato contains Agrobacterium T-DNAs with expressed genes: An example of a naturally transgenic food crop, Kyndt et al, 2015, PNAS

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Do Aid and Development need their own TripAdvisor feedback system?, From Poverty to Power

Rebranding bran: teaching nutrient-rich cooking in Mali, The Guardian

African hub set up to boost research autonomy, Nature

Global Food Industry Reluctant Leaders of Smallholder Farming Revolution, The Huffington Post

Managing for Resilience: Framing an integrated landscape approach for overcoming chronic and acute food insecurity, Buck and Bailey

Agri-tech for Africa’s food security, development, SciDev.Net

Water-Smart Agriculture in East Africa, PAEPARD

New interactive tool brings malnutrition data to life, Devex

Fateful Harvest: Why Brazil has a big appetite for risky pesticides, Reuters

Denmark’s Drug-Free Pigs, The New York Times

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Report: Photosynthesis hack needed to feed the world by 2050, EurekAlert

For Monsanto, a Season of Woes, The Wall Street Journal

GM crops: Vital for food security? Or overestimated potential?, The Independent

How genetic engineering can fight disease, reduce insecticide use and enhance food security: Pamela Ronald speaks at TED2015, TED

Is Monsanto on the side of science?, New Internationalist

China Seeks to Develop Global Seed Power, The Wall Street Journal

Discovery of heat-tolerant beans could save ‘meat of the poor’ from global warming, EurekAlert

Study Links Widely Used Pesticides to Antibiotic Resistance, Civil Eats

Genetically Modified Crop Industry Continues to Expand, Worldwatch Institute

World Health Organization: GM-Crop Herbicide a Probable Carcinogen, Food Tank

Achieve Global Food Security by Investing in Universities, Global Food for Thought

The GM crops debate moves to Africa – and it’s just as noisy, The Independent

Can ‘down to earth’ innovations keep hunger at bay in the Sahel?, Thomson Reuters Foundation

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Pope Francis Urges Concrete Action in Global Nutrition Challenge At UN Conference in Rome, All Africa

Researchers Find an Area the Size of the EU is Cultivated in Urban Areas Around the World, Food Tank

Want to grow more food? Boost investment, women’s land tenure, researcher says, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Mobilising The Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, PAEPARD

World Food Programme: ‘Without enough food people can’t fight Ebola’, BBC News

Monsanto, Dow Unit Sue Maui County Over GMO Law, Huffington Post

World Water Summit Coverage – Key Themes for Agriculture, Farming First

How do farmers’ behavioural attitudes affect uptake of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies?, ILRI

Improving Nutrition Outcomes Through Optimized Agricultural Investments (ATONU), PAEPARD

Farming in the face of climate change? Monsanto has an app for that, GRIST

IFAD programme builds small farmers’ resilience through knowledge sharing in water-scarce countries, IFAD

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Back agriculture to get the most out of aid to Africa, SciDev.Net

No-till agriculture may not bring hoped-for boost in global crop yields, study finds, UC Davis

Family farms produce 80 percent of world’s food, speculators seek land, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Can We Feed the World in 2050? A Scoping Paper to Assess the Evidence, GDAE

Principles for responsible agriculture and food investments are approved, FAO

Oxfam response to UN Committee on World Food Security Endorsement of Principles, Oxfam

Why ‘climate-smart agriculture’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, The Guardian

The Race Is On to Find Organic Pesticides, The Wall Street Journal

7 short videos on big ideas for improving water use in agriculture

Last week was World Water Week, an annual gathering, starting in 1991, to focus on the globe’s water issues. This year’s event, hosted and organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), had the theme water and energy. One of the main outcomes of the events was a plea to the energy and agricultural industry to reduce waste and improve water use efficiencies ahead of UN climate talks taking place in Lima, Peru in December and in Paris next year. In particular World Water Week focused on the critical role of water in climate change, in human health and in energy and food production – the majority of the world’s freshwater withdrawals going to power and food production, and manufacturing in Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa. The agricultural sector will be key, therefore, in addressing future water resource scarcities.

A commonly cited statistic is that we will need to produce at least 70% more food to feed the global population by 2050. Such an endeavour will require a doubling of water efficiencies and significant efforts to protect water resources under climate change. Demand for fresh water is projected to grow 55% from 2000 to 2050. Alongside the need to increase production is the need to reduce food waste with around a third of food, and the water used in producing this food, thought to be wasted. In the 2013 FAO report, Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources the impacts of global food wastage on the climate, water, land use, and biodiversity were explored. Torgny Holmgren, SIWI’s executive director claimed that “Reducing the waste of food is the smartest and most direct route to relieve pressure on water and land resources,”

World Water Week began with industry executives and scientists discussing how to reduce food waste and use water more efficiently in agriculture. And while many companies and individuals are taking up this challenge – the Stockholm Industry Water Award was given to PepsiCo Inc. for reducing water consumption in production and increasing water efficiency, saving almost 16 billion litres of water in 2013 from a 2006 baseline – much more needs to be done.

To highlight some of the challenges and solutions to reducing water use in farming we’ve put together some of our favourite videos on water and agriculture.

World Water Week 2014: Energy and Water

The World Water Week, held August 31 – September 5 in Stockholm, is the leading annual global event for addressing the planet’s water and development issues. Hosted by the Stockholm International Water Institute, the event attracts thousands of participants from over 130 countries. This year’s theme: Water and Energy will address some of the most urgent challenges facing our world. Global demand for energy as well as water is booming. Demand for both is projected to increase by over 50 per cent during the coming decades. This narrated piece describes the week, and this year’s theme, in more detail.

Water use on an African farm – Send a Cow

This video follows Eric in Uganda to find out how he uses water on his family farm. They need 15 jerry cans of 20 litres each every day for the home, farm animals and vegetable gardens. But it’s a one mile walk to the borehole. The family does it’s best to harvest rainwater from the roof and save water by composting, mulching and using water saving technologies like a Tip-Tap and water bottle drip irrigation.

Managing water wisely on African farms – Green Shoots

Water is precious. Using water wisely on farm is essential, believes Benson Njoroge from Kenya. In this film he explains how and why managing water wisely matters. This film, one of eleven, is being used to share good agricultural practice in Africa.

How water data can help farmers in the Upper Volta – ThinkBeyondTheTap

Fred Kitzo, based in IWMI’s Ghana office, researches the water resource challenges facing agriculture in the Upper Volta region. Water data is vital, he says, to help farmers and policy makers make more sustainable resource management decisions.

The indoor farming revolution

Indoor, vertical, hydroponic, urban. Whatever you want to call them, these high-tech farms are popping up all over the world from office buildings in Japan to research laboratories in the Netherlands to O’Hare International airport in Chicago, and even your own home. Here we talk about what they are, how they can revolutionise the food industry and what the major drawbacks are.

Introducing indoor farming

Access to arable land and fresh water is declining, traditional commercial farming methods are environmentally unsustainable and climate change is becoming less of a threat and more of a reality. In the face of these challenges we must produce enough food to feed a growing population, many of whom are chronically hungry. Some believe the answer lies in a radical transformation of our food production systems, namely indoor farming, a method that can reduce the inefficiency and waste (e.g. of water or of crops) associated with modern farming practices.

Indoor farming is happening across the globe, although predominantly in developed countries. The world’s largest indoor farm at 25,000 square feet is located in the old SONY factory located in eastern Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture. Some 380 enclosed farms growing fruit and vegetables are operating in Japan, including some run by electronics companies Fujitsu, Toshiba and Panasonic. But what is indoor farming?