Blue Nile, Sudan on-going violence

Margaret Gardner
May 3rd, 2012

Barnaby Peacocke, one of my colleagues, is just back from Sudan and gave an update at our ‘stand up’, staff meeting yesterday.

The fighting along the border between Sudan and Southern Sudan continues. This is impacting our work in the Blue Nile and the EU funded project is temporarily on hold. The likelihood is that this state of armed unrest will sadly continue.

We need to work out how in this new reality our work can continue. Our commitment is undiminished.

Listening to Barney I felt particularly moved as when I visited the Blue Nile area, two years ago now, people were talking about their hope following the end of the conflict with the South, they talked of the impact of the war, how some had been forced to fight, others had lost family members, all had struggled to get food, vital medicine, etc. Life had been very, very tough but now there was the hope of a better life and they were ambitious for peace and development.

Now things have changed and we have to continue, increase our work but do things differently.

Thankfully we have a ‘model’, ie.development speak for experience that shows us how it can be done.

In Darfur we’ve worked throughout the conflict; improving peoples farming techniques and yields, access to and quality of water, improving stoves so that they used less fuel – requiring women to make fewer dangerous journeys in search of wood or other fuel, helped people market their crops so that they had money for vital items such as medicine, helped communities preserve foods through techniques such as pickling etc.

After the kidnap of several of our staff and the attempted kidnap of others (thankfully eventually everyone was freed safely, but scared and their vehicles stolen or burned), we decided we had to find a different way of working. All our staff are local and so know the situation in detail – where ever it was reasonable safe for us and the communities we would continue our work directly (sometimes this changed day by day). Where it wasn’t safe for Practical Action people to travel or community gatherings could attract violence we worked with a brave group of people who so valued Practical Actions support they were willing to take extraordinary action.

Village Development Committees and the Women’s Development Associations. Networks we helped established to expand and continue our work. From each village one or two people travelling together, often using unusual paths or routes could get safely through to places no-one else could.

How it worked was that people from these groups would travel to a safe point, coming together they would meet with Practical Action staff. They would be trained in stove making, learn how to grow a new crop, receive seeds, be trained in water conservation, or other support. Help that on a day to day basis would improve their and their communities lives. They would then travel back to their villages and share their learning and/or support with their family, friends and community. Through these networks we were able to continue our work, throughout the conflict, even in some of the most difficult to reach parts of Darfur.

We worked with hugely courageous, brave people in Darfur – speaking to them when I visited their villages I was moved particularly the bravery of the women.

Having met the communities we’ve been working with in the Blue Nile, I believe we will find brave people there, too.

The conflict in the Blue Nile is dire and needs to be stopped. But, if as news reports say, it’s likely to continue for at least the next two years – we have to do all we can to help people caught up in this continue to build their lives.

Our commitment remains undiminished.

Im sorry for the ramble – Ive just dashed this off – but I didnt want to forget how moved I was by Barneys words thinking about the people I met and shared with in Sudan.

Once upon a time…

….there was a little girl who loved stories. As a little slip of a thing, she used to stand and swing on the garden gate, waving to passers-by in the hope that she could chat to them and ask them questions to find out their stories (she was a very curious little girl). A few years later, her very patient, very wonderful mother would read her favourite Maurice Sendak stories Outside Over There and Where The Wild Things Are to her every night. When she was at school, she’d set her alarm super early so she could wake up and read Enid Blyton books before going to lessons. English was always her favourite subject, and characters such as Elizabeth Bennett, Scout Finch, Jo March and Scarlett O’Hara were as familiar to her as her oldest friends. And then she studied the art of telling a story – for it is an art – during an English Literature degree at university.

Now that little girl (who’s not so little anymore) works for Practical Action.

I am that girl. And I work at Practical Action because I want to change the world. But my passion is storytelling: both discovering a good story, and then telling it in the best possible way. But how do you change the world with a story?

Well, this week, we at Practical Action launched our next five year strategy. It is bold and ambitious and exciting – but challenging too. The targets, both in terms of fundraising and impact at scale, are high.

But that’s because there are huge problems to solve. Right now 1.3 billion people across the world don’t have clean, safe water. 1 billion people don’t have enough food to eat. 2.6 billion people don’t have adequate sanitation. And 1.6 billion people don’t have access to modern energy. Too many people live in abject poverty. It is a world of great technology injustice.

There is no question that this needs to change. So over the next five years we will work towards four universal goals:

1. Sustainable access to modern energy service for all by 2030
2. Systems which provide food security and livelihoods for people in rural areas
3. Improved access to drinking water, sanitation and waste services for people living in towns and cities
4. Reduced risk of disasters for marginalised communities

And by the end of this next strategy period, in 2017, we will have transformed the lives of 6 million people.

That is an exhilarating prospect for me.

Because 6 million people = 6 million stories to find and tell.

Each of those 6 million is not just a ‘project beneficiary’ but a living, feeling, thinking human being with their own unique life story. And those 6 million life stories are 6 million more reasons to support Practical Action, today and for the future.

I can’t wait to get started.

Joy in People

One of the greatest joys of working in fundraising is meeting lots of amazing people who want to do  something to change the world – whether that’s donating loose change, or running 10km and asking for sponsorship, or organising a cake sale, or setting up a charitable trust to give away larger sums of money, or climbing mountains , as some of our student supporters are doing.

Last night I was very honoured to be a guest speaker at a women only fundraising dinner in Yorkshire which was both celebrating women, and raising money for Practical Action’s work in Sudan. The room was full of over 200 women, all intelligent, funny, charming, wonderful people. Last night alone raised in excess of £7,000! And it’s all going towards a food project in rural Kassala which is helping nearly 100,000 people – some of the poorest on the planet – to make a better living from farming by giving them the tools, knowledge and skills they need to move to a life beyond poverty .  The generosity in that room was tangible. And it’s amazing to experience it. All too often it seems we’re living in the worst of times – great economic austerity, a seemingly endless war against terrorism, a government that cuts benefits from the most vulnerable while simultaneously allowing the rich to prosper. It can easy to be cynical, unmotivated, to think the worst and do absolutely nothing about it.

But the dinner last night was a perfect reminder that people are, for the most part, pretty wonderful. Tell a room of women that there are 4.2 million people in Sudan starving, and they will dig deep and donate, in the hope of making tomorrow brighter than today.

Today is also Sport Relief – and I know that millions of people up and down the country will be compelled to do something about the injustice of global poverty – whether that’s texting a donation while watching tonight’s TV show, or running the Sport Relief mile on Sunday.

Gandhi once said “be the change you wish to see in the world.” Thank God there are so many wonderful people who live their lives true to that mantra. Today my heart is full of joy because of them – thank you.  Happy Friday everyone!

The need to focus on women and technology

Susan Upton
March 8th, 2012

This International Women’s Day is all about empowering women to end hunger and poverty. Women play a vital role in food production in developing countries.  In fact, 43% of the agricultural workforce are women. Yet they have very limited access to resources such as land, credit and agricultural training and information compared to men.

I was therefore happy to attend an event in parliament on the 7^th March on ‘Effective Solutions for Agricultural Development through Empowered African Women Scientists’. The event concentrated on getting women into leadership positions within science and technology and building their skills and confidence within the agricultural sector. It also places the spotlight on the need for research into aspects of agriculture that are important and helpful to women farmers.

Woman using her technical skills to make pots in Sudan

I listened to the stories of two African women scientists, Dr Sheila Ommeh from the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya and Christine Mukantwali a senior scientist from Rwanada. Both women are AWARD (African Women in Agricultural Research and Development) fellows. Both women have invested considerable time in researching sustainable agricultural solutions to help their communities and have acted as role models for girls in local schools, encouraging them to get interested in science.

It was great to hear about the importance of getting more women into science. However, this got me thinking about the wider topic of women and technology.

Technology is a vital element for any community. It plays a significant role in food security, agriculture and small scale production. Women use technical skills and knowledge in their daily activities; they continually innovate and adapt technologies in response to things they face in their everyday lives. However, their role and technical skills are often overlooked and undervalued.

There are four main reasons why women are less visible in the application of technology than men:

• Firstly, much of women’s work is unpaid. Women have responsibilities for child care and subsistence tasks and this means it is less visible in national statistics.
• Secondly, is the cultural perception of what constitutes ‘technology’. Women carry out a considerable number of technical activities every day. For example, they farm, process crops, weave, sew, collect wood and water, tend to small livestock, fish and look after children. These activities are mostly domestic , small scale and considered un-technical.
• Thirdly, the perception of what comprises technology is mostly in the realm of ‘hard’ technology- that of equipment, like computers or machinery, but ‘soft’ technology is usually overlooked. Soft technology comprises the skills, concepts and knowledge needed to use the ‘hard’ technology. Women often have a lot of skill but use less complex equipment (e.g. in food processing).
• Fourthly, the fact that few women are involved in agricultural extension work, research and development or technical development planning has meant there has been little challenging of assumptions made about the nature of productive roles and responsibilities and assumptions that  have undermined women’s roles and technical capacities.

The spotlight on women in science should open up and include the empowerment of those women that use technology day in and day out.  Practical Action’s ‘Discovering Technologists’ training guidelines is aimed at  increasing the skills of those involved in technology development, working in the agricultural development sector.  The training is an empowering process whereby women can realize that their knowledge is not only technical but also valuable, and this realisation leads to women themselves consciously exploring, strengthening and sharing the expertise that they have.

The challenges of a woman alpaca farmer

To celebrate International Women’s Day we have two stories from Peru which demonstrate how Practical Action’s work helps to empower women in the developing world.

The Chilihua community in Cusco, has a new ‘kamayoq’. This term is an ancient Inca word for an extension worker who advises a community on agricultural practice.

42 year-old Rebelina Tijeras Salas undertook a year of studies at Practical Action’s kamayoq school along with 44 other women from the region. At the end of year fair she stood in her booth preparing to receive her guests and explain to them how to control diseases in their alpaca herds.

From a young age Rebelina (whose name means ‘rebellion’) had been taught everything she needed to know to become a good daughter, wife, mother and alpaca farmer. But her rebellious spirit helped her also to become a leader within a culture in which women are still not valued the same as men.

“I had the chance to move on from being a simple alpaca-breeder to assuming a role that required more dedication, better techniques and implied much more knowledge”, she pointed out. She knew from her ancestors that becoming a kamayoq implied being a teaching authority. From a common alpaca-breeder she would become a leading alpaca-raising technician.

“My second husband never wanted me to be a kamayoq, but this was a commitment I had made to myself and I am determined to fulfill it”, she recalled cheerfully.

“My purpose in life is to be more than a mother and a wife. I want to share my knowledge of development with my community to achieve general progress instead of being the only one to benefit from this opportunity.”

Whilst she was speaking, six year-old Paul, her fourth child, stood next to her. He is accustomed to listening to her talk that way because he accompanied her to the kamayoq school thanks to the nursery available at every monthly meeting.

Yolanda Barrientos is the 24 year-old teacher in charge of the nursery. Some of the lessons she uses with the children include alpacas as the protagonists, so that they feel they are learning the same thing as their mothers. More than 80% of the participants have children between 1 and 5 years of age, which can be an excuse for not attending workshops. This was a determining factor for Rebelina, as she was able to take Paul with her at all times.

After so many months of studying, Rebelina is taking advantage of her experience. “It has been a great change for both my family and my sector. This has helped me develop, to feel more inclined to participate and to be valued not only for who I am but for what I know”, she remarked.

Her next goal is to specialize in leadership in addition to animal health. “Previously, my alpaca herds would be attacked by disease without my realizing it, but now I know the technical names and how to prevent them. Look at everything that has happened to me, but yet I have succeeded”, she added. “Nothing is impossible in life when you want it badly enough and in this case, achieving it has not only made me happy, but benefits my whole community.”

Rebelina’s farewell smile softened the hard look she has acquired over time. She continued explaining about the medication she must apply to her alpacas, with the self-confidence acquired as a result of the training she received at Kamayoq school.

It’s never too early to learn to become a leader

After an intensive year of studying at Practical Action’s Kamayoq School, one of the 45 women will make a presentation about what they were taught in their course for Alpaca farmers in Toxaccota, Cusco, Peru.

July Quispe Quincho is full of enthusiasm, nervous but excited about speaking in public. A year ago she found out that her mother would be joining the school and she wished with all her might that she too could do so, although she was only fifteen. “I was waiting for an opportunity to develop my love for animals.,” she recalls, “But I was told that the minimum age was 25.”

Because of her passion for animals, she gained the confidence of her community who proposed that she should become a Kamayoq alongside her mother Vistación Quinco. So July became the youngest Kamayoq student.

July and Vistación feel that the alpaca-raising classes they attended at the Kamayoq school went beyond the limits of a simple learning experience. In the Peruvian highlands, farming and livestock-raising are the main source of income for families like theirs. Moreover, it is the women in the households who carry out those chores. That is why learning to improve their production and market their wool has made them feel much more secure in their role in the household and in the community.

“This has been the greatest challenge of my life”, said July, as she stood in the midst of the alpacas that will be her own within a few years. The bright colours of her clothing and the sparkle in her eyes still show the innocence of a child. But her determination to educate herself conveys a sense of self-confidence that makes her stand out among the other girls of her age.

Her mother, 36 year-old Vistación, is very proud of July. She is the eldest of her three children and although she had her doubts when July suggested going to the Kamayoq School with her, she now has the utmost confidence in her. “To see my daughter learning from such a young age is very satisfying. I only completed grade three of primary school,” said Vistacion, who had to leave her studies when she was very young to bring up her family.

Many households in the so-called “puna” – the highest region in the Peruvian highlands – have preserved many of their ancestors’ customs. Initially, July’s father was not at all pleased at the idea of his wife and daughter leaving home for five days a month and it was difficult for Vistación to convince him. Now, as she listens to July talking confidently about the shearing process or how the women should act in their communities, she knows that supporting her daughter was right. “My husband has also understood this and now he stays home taking care of the alpacas when we go to the school for training”, she explained.

July’s father talks to her about the alpacas that she will soon manage on her own. “It is the inheritance my parents will leave me and I must look after them in the best possible way”, she confirmed. She began talking about the beautiful sweaters she could make.

July’s success is replicated at school. She is in the third year of secondary school and is the new leader of her classroom. “My friends have noticed something different in me” she added with a broad smile. “I have explained that they must obtain the support of their community, but they are eager to learn more about the alpacas”, she continued. She has promised them that she will teach them about mating techniques, business management and handicrafts, three of the subjects that have most attracted her attention during her year of studies.

“I already feel like a Kamayoq and I am proud to have been part of this course. I could live in the “puna” forever, alongside my animals, as long as I am a professional” she ended. That is her goal in life and she will always consider the Kamayoq school as the first step towards her preparation for the future.

The road north to Kilinochchi

I’d done lots of reading and my conversations with local staff had painted in some detail. But I was utterly unprepared.

It takes 9 hours to drive from Colombo to Kilinochchi.

Colombo is the prosperous-looking capital of Sri Lanka, a middle income country. I’d chatted to a man working at my hotel in Colombo. He described to me how Sri Lanka is working for the Big People. But for him – a family man with two kids working 18 hour shifts as attendant and earning less in a month than the rate of my hotel room (a big overstatement, for certain, but we all understand his point) – life is difficult. High inflation of prices for essentials is just making it harder. He was describing a common predicament – large gap between rich and poor in middle income countries – and I felt for him.

But the road up to Kilinochchi is a journey into a different, more complex world. Not simply the inequitable one that I have seen before.

At first, from Puttalam to Anuradhapura, the evidence of conflict is not what you might expect. We’re in the heart of elephant country. A recent ‘census’ counted over 7,000 wild elephants in Sri Lanka. Human-elephant country is a serious problem. Government policies yo-yo between discouraging settlement in elephant passes to intentional development in the areas. I see houses abandoned. The patchwork of rice fields remains untended.

After Anuradhapura we begin to pass garrison after garrison of government troops: A silent, ominous, quickening drum roll. A war occurred here.

A ruined UNICEF building, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka

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Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils have lived side by side on the Island for over 2000 years. Mostly they have been able to find peaceful co-existence. Throughout history however Sri Lanka has suffered invasions from India. These have periodically stoked popular resentment amongst the Sinhalese towards the Tamils, who share deep ties with populations in India, Tamil Nadu in particular. Tamils have been treated as outsiders. There have been times when large numbers of Tamils have evacuated or been expelled to India.

The British colonial period threw toxic yeast into the mix. In an account that so echoes what I understand of Rwanda, my colleague Rane puts me straight. When the British took control of the island in 1815 they sought to take the power away from ‘trouble-making’ Sinhalese leaders by eroding the institutions on which their statuses were founded. They abolished slavery and replaced in kind servitude with salaried labour. The British promoted the minority Tamils into a ruling class, appointing them to all the leadership roles of public office. They invested in their education, already at a higher level than the Sinhalese, in so doing entrenching this divide and rule order. When Sri Lankan Tamils were not malleable to the plan, the British brought in Indians to do the job. By the time Sri Lanka (which was called Ceylon at the time) achieved independence in 1948 the British had transformed the economy (tea anyone?), turned the structures of power in the country on their heads, and created an environment ripe for ethnic conflict.

Support for Buddhist-Nationalism grew strong. When in power populist leaders took increasingly steps to reaffirm the Sinhalese at the centre of culture and Buddhism as the dominating religion. In 1972 the number of Tamil places in universities was capped and Buddhism was written into new legislation as holding the “foremost place” amongst the island’s religions. Widespread unrest ensued and groups of young Tamils, including The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), called for an independent Tamil state in the north and the east. They established jungle guerrilla bases.

Boiling point hit in 1983 when the Tamil Tigers ambushed and massacred an army patrol in the Jaffna region. The Sinhalese retaliated with a month of killing and looting, now known as Black July. As many as two thousand people were slaughtered, and whole areas were levelled.

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The war lasted 26 years. The war had its ebbs, including an unstable ceasefire from 2002 to 2005. But its crests were horrific. Upwards of 100,000 women, men and children, a large proportion of them civilians, were killed. Over 1 million people were displaced. War crimes were almost certainly perpetrated by both sides, but with no independent observers allowed into the war zones, nothing can be confirmed.

Kilinochchi town was the base of the Tamil Tigers, the symbolic capital of their Eelam. The district was the place of the Tamil Tigers’ last stand to the Sri Lanka Army’s massive offensive in 2008. By the time President Rajapakse declared the final victory of the Sri Lanka Army in May 2009, and a conclusive end to the war, Kilinochchi had been utterly flattened.

Kilinochchi is where I am heading. (This blog was written in October 2011).

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I’m on assignment to provide technical support for pro-poor market development as part of Practical Action’s one-year rehabilitation and recovery project here. I’m delivering training to our staff and a number of other agencies working in the conflict affected north and east – CARE, Oxfam, Worldvision and UNDP. I am the first Practical Action head office staff to go there.

United Nations Development Program at the training workshop, Sri Lanka

It was as we passed Vuvuniya, after the army checkpoint, that my stomach started turning.

On the final 70 km stretch to Kilinochchi there are more bunkers than other buildings put together. Hardly a single building from three years ago remains. The buildings that stand are mostly the result of the UN’s Refugee Agency: corrugated iron shacks covered with waterproof sheets, and occasionally, newly built ‘permanent resettlements’. There are far more soldiers than civilians. Every road, bridge and irrigation channel has been blown up.

It’s dark by now. On the insignificant upside, there is so little around that there’s no light pollution. As the driver, Bandara, and I take a cheeky pee on the side of the road, I can see the Milky Way.

Temporary shelter, paid for by the US government, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka

In the two and a half years since the end of the war, reconstruction and rehabilitation has started apace. Road building, bridge repair, irrigation rehabilitation. De-mining programmes abound. Large scale programmes to return internally displaced persons have made swift, safe and effective progress. ‘Return’ often proves to be a misleading word though, many ‘returnees’ have been resettled in new locations, bringing both challenges and opportunities. All work is led or closely monitored by the government, and financed by the international humanitarian and development industries. Faith-based groups (especially Christian) tend to be at the forefront of putting civil society roots back in the ground.

Returning home, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka

The private sector is patchy. The biggest companies who are kitted out to cope with high risk have re-established themselves. Cargill’s national supermarket chain, for example, has set-up a new supermarket even before the road leading to it is completely finished. Individual entrepreneurship is also strong. This is a consequence of many not having access to natural resources; traditional occupations on which they used to depend difficult to return to. This entrepreneurship comes in every flavour: Small shops selling small goods; tractor rental; basic eateries; and also prostitution, largely serving the humanitarian expats. My colleague Sampath tells me that in Batticola, another conflict-affected district, as much as 40 % of women who have lost their husbands in the war have entered into prostitution. There’s also a missing middle to the business environment: small and medium enterprises do not have the skills and resources to understand the risks and opportunities of this post-conflict world.

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Practical Action’s project here is called A New Beginning – Rehabilitating Irrigation Infrastructure and Initialising Market Development.  It is funded by the United States government Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA).

With the traditional tanks in disrepair, the returnee communities wait for the government to deliver water each week, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka

The team here is working with recent returnees and government engineers to rebuild traditional water tanks in two locations. The tanks are little more than natural bowls, each around half a kilometre in length and width. The natural edges of the bowls are raised with soil covered in grass, and strategic channels and gates are installed to allow locals to control the flow of water. Maintenance of the banks and the irrigation gates is traditionally carried out by the communities living around the tanks. Rain water is captured and stored during the monsoon and channelled into fields in the torrid dry season. The bowls also raise the surrounding water table, keeping wells filled higher and for longer and create an oasis for wildlife. To me this is a perfect example of indigenous, intermediate technology.

Returnees plan the irrigation rehabilitation, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka

With Kilinochchi in the heart of the conflict zone for the most of the 26-year war, these communities have had to flee their homes and lives, sometimes on a number of occasions and often for years at a time. Families are now returning, but empty handed and often penniless, they do not have the resources to maintain the tanks as they had done in the past.

To get the tanks back into good shape the project uses a common humanitarian approach – ‘cash-for-work’ – offering incomes to returning locals by hiring them to do the work.

Locals work on raising the banks of the tank, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka

As Suganthan, the project’s technical officer tells me, this approach is much harder to use effectively and not necessarily desirable.

Most other humanitarian cash-for-work programs around here are really just trying to shift cash to returnees, and use cash-for-work as a guise to argue that they are not creating aid dependency. In practice though these programmes hardly judge their performance on getting the ‘work’ that is carried out, and care little whether those hired actually work or not. Often they don’t. Workers sit under trees all day and they still collect the cash in the evening. The work doesn’t get done, is it is done poorly and no-one cares. Aid dependency still festers.

The approach in this project is different. We really want the work to be done. The completion of the tank rehabilitation in time for the end-of-year rains will determine whether the returnees can grow anything in the dry season in the new year. So Suganthan calls Practical Action’s approach ‘work-for-cash’. If locals want to work, they can, and they’ll earn something, he explains. “If this doesn’t happen, we hire local construction companies to get the work done.”

In reality around 60 % of the work is carried out by the poor. Poor people spend some time working on the tanks and spend the rest of their time rebuilding their homes and preparing their fields.

Local construction companies working on the tank rehabilitation, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka

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(written a few months later) Now in March, with tanks full, irrigation systems ready and the dry season arriving, the project now helps the locals around the tanks to recommence vegetable or fruit production. These are crops that can bring in income, what these people say they really need most.

The tank, now rehabilitated, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka

Many other livelihood support programmes around here and elsewhere focus entirely on agricultural production and end up panicking when the project ‘beneficiaries’ produce a glut of produce no-one wants to buy.  Again Practical Action’s team is taking a different approach.

We are working with the farmers and other people who work in agriculture to think about the demand for crops in the end markets: local ones, those in Jaffna up north, and those down south and identify what can be done to meet this demand. The team is facilitating a process that enables poor returnees to produce in-demand fruit and vegetables in an environmentally sustainable way and sell them for reliable prices into the markets that want them.

To make agriculture work again for those most in need, the team realises that production needs to be demand-driven and the market system as a whole needs to work well. The team therefore works not just with the poor farmers but also with other actors in the whole supply chain that takes produce from the field to the kitchen table and the fruit bowl. These actors include traders, buyers and retailers. We also work with the people who provide important services for the farmers such as agricultural advice and inputs. Many of these actors face their own huge challenges in this post-conflict situation: they feel the risks and cost of doing business here are too high, they are ill-equipped and have poor skills. The networks and relationships their occupations depend on are non-existent or hostile, as a result of the war and the displacement it caused. If their problems are not addressed alongside those of the farmers, then the returnees’ produce will not find reasonable and reliable prices.

Using market maps to understand the whole agricultural system, from seed to kitchen table, Sri Lanka

In this way the project is demonstrating the potential of the area and its farmers, encouraging the government and others take seriously the opportunities that exist here and begin to reinvest in small farmers.

Food… as if people and the planet mattered

Patrick Mulvany
February 27th, 2012

In the mists of the Kenyan highlands where tea bushes cling to steep slopes, women farmers provide good food for their families and communities with a surplus for the market. In the county of Kiambu, women, taking a lead from their late and beloved leader Wangari Maathai , the recently deceased Nobel Laureate environmentalist, in whose honour they planted a tree of remembrance, keep their diverse, productive and nutritious fields bursting with many food plants, bushes and trees. Their soils, enriched by the manure of their cows, goats and poultry, exude fertility. Their fields harvesting rain supplemented by water from wells provide a cornucopia of grain, fruit and vegetables. This is the central core of their food web extended by exchanges with neighbours and nearby communities and family members in town, with some food sold and purchased in the local market.

The good news is that this is the majority food system – not giant supermarkets chained to industrial commodity production that is destroying livelihoods, local markets and the environment. Most food in the world – more than 70% – is grown, harvested and consumed locally.

It is provided usually by women who are small-scale food producers – farmers, livestock keepers, fishers, urban gardeners and others – much of it, like the Kenyan farmers I visited, produced without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These inventive and skilful people know how to produce good, healthy food for their families, communities and, especially local, markets. They can secure our future food if their production systems can be supported and protected and if they are decisively involved in setting priorities for resource use, research, extension, investment and markets – a message that needs to be broadcast to decision makers who are gathering throughout the coming year to determine the priorities for food production and nutrition , responses to climate change and the governance of the planet’s environment .

Food production practices need to recycle nutrients and protect natural resources rather than rely on fossil fuel dependent inputs that undermine long term productivity. These practices of small-scale farmers and livestock keepers enable them to develop resilient and biodiverse seeds and livestock breeds adapted to the local environment which, when used more widely, have been shown to increase overall yields in degraded systems by 50-200% . These are the practices developed and nurtured by small-scale food providers like the women of Kiambu. They and the many hundreds of millions of other small-scale food providers, including farmers, pastoralists, artisanal fishers and urban gardeners, on whom we depend for our food, need to have decisive input into setting priorities for resource use, research, extension, investment and markets, if sustained increases in food production are to be achieved.

Achieving this requires convincing decision makers at all levels that small-scale food providers are the guardians of our food system. Decision makers are often driven by the mantra that food production must increase dramatically to fulfil the needs of the billion who are currently malnourished and sustain 9 billion people by 2050 and to do so on limited land and water resources while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on increasingly scarce fossil fuels. Therefore they are erroneously persuaded to back ‘ sustainable intensification ‘ of industrial production as a priority.

What those who make decisions about our food system need to understand is that there is enough food in the world for everybody and much more could be readily provided using the existing skills of small-scale food providers. It is poverty that causes hunger not lack of production. In order to make the food system less dysfunctional, a more systemic change in production and power relations is required, with more equitable distribution of food produced as locally as possible.

The food system needs to be securely based on small-scale ecological practices, which have higher productivity in the long term, as confirmed by the groundbreaking international agriculture assessment, IAASTD , to which Practical Action contributed significantly. The needed increase in production will not be achieved, equitably and sustainably, if food production continues to depend on resource depleting technologies that are promoted by global agribusinesses for universal application. Specific attention, research and action needs to be paid to the resilient forms of production, practised by small-scale food providers, that work with nature to raise productivity while restoring degraded resources.

Yet these small-scale providers of the world’s food are under massive threat from the avarice of agribusiness corporations that are intent on capturing their markets, livelihoods and resources. Over many years, however, their organisations, especially our ally La Via Campesina , have shown how these threats can be mitigated and what changes in policy are necessary to secure future food supplies – all summarised in their food sovereignty policy framework .

The food sovereignty approach to providing good, local food in ecologically and socially sustainable ways is the type of proposal that Schumacher would have supported, as new economics foundation fellow, Andrew Simms , said in an interview published in the Summer 2011 issue of Practical Action’s newsletter Small World :

“The food sovereignty movement, for example, is an ideal manifestation of everything Schumacher believed in. It is a model of how you would apply Schumacher’s notions of subsidiarity and appropriateness of scale to the food system. Food sovereignty, with its focus on local food needs and making sure these are compatible with local ecosystems, is a living vehicle of the ideas and insights of Schumacher.”

We support this approach, as summarised in our policy narrative , which shows how Practical Action’s values – justice, sustainability, diversity, democracy, and empowerment – describe the fundamental components that need to be in place to realise our vision of an equitable food system. These values allow us to analyse systematically the current state of global and local food systems, establishing the extent to which they contribute to the realisation of this vision.

In the same way, we can better understand how it is that the food and agriculture system is failing. By identifying where it is that the food system falls short of these values, it becomes possible to ascertain the changes that are necessary at all levels if we are to move closer to the vision of world in which the right of people to sufficient food and to food sovereignty is realised in ways that also protect the environment on which we all depend.

We are committed to realising this vision – to develop a food system as if people and the planet mattered – a system that emulates the good work of the women of Kiambu.

Patrick Mulvany, Senior Policy Adviser to Practical Action,
Kiambu, Kenya

ENDNOTES

This is an extended version of an article published in Practical Action’s newsletter Small World , Issue number 53, Spring 2012

See tribute to Wangari Maathai http://practicalaction.org/blog/news/wangari-maathai-an-inspiration/

See ‘Who will feed us?’ www.etcgroup.org/upload/publication/pdf_file/ETC_Who_Will_Feed_Us.pdf

See website of the Civil Society Mechanism of the UN Committee on World Food Security www.cso4cfs.org/

See paper on the links between climate change and agriculture www.econexus.info/publication/agriculture-and-climate-change-real-problems-false-solutions

See Civil Society joint statement on the key agricultural issues to be considered at the Rio+20 conference www.timetoactrio20.org/en/

See Report of Oliver De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Agro-ecology and the Right to Food , which reveals that small-scale sustainable farming would even double food production within five to 10 years in places where most hungry people on the planet live. www.srfood.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/1174-report-agroecology-and-the-right-to-food

See reflection on the Beddington Foresight Report on global food and farming practicalaction.org/blog/news/contribution-to-the-westminster-forum-on-food-and-nutrition/

IAASTD, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, is the groundbreaking international scientific assessment to which Practical Action contributed significantly. Practical Action was one of the six NGO members of the governing bureau of the assessment which reported in 2008. See www.iaastd.net and www.ukfg.org.uk/agriculture_crossroads/ for details

Even in the 1970s Schumacher had already declared that “present-day industrial society everywhere shows this evil characteristic of incessantly stimulating greed, envy, and avarice.” See: Modern Industry in the Light of the Gospel , b y E. F. Schumacher http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/content/schumacher-modern-industry

See the website of the International Farmers’ Movement www.viacampesina.org/

See UK Food Group publication Securing Future Food: towards ecological food provision www.ukfg.org.uk/ecological_food_provision.php

See the Synthesis Report of the Nyéléni 2007: Forum for Food Sovereignty www.nyeleni.org/IMG/pdf/31Mar2007NyeleniSynthesisReport-en.pdf

See full interview with Andrew Simms of the new economics foundation practicalaction.org/andrewsimms

See Practical Action’s policy narrative on Food and Agriculture practicalaction.org/food-and-agriculture-policy-narrative

UK needs scientific research into agroecology – not GM

Patrick Mulvany
January 26th, 2012

The greatest challenge facing agricultural scientists is how to work with farmers producing more ecological and healthier food – not GM, argues Patrick Mulvany, Senior Policy Adviser, Practical Action and Chair, UK Food Group

At the start of 2012 we should be energised by the news that BASF, the German chemical and seeds giant, has decided to pull out of genetically modified plant development in Europe. This is testament to the effectiveness of public pressure and “ another nail in the coffin for genetically modified foods in Europe ,” as Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth said.

But beyond successes in GM skirmishes, we should remind ourselves why we should be optimistic about the defence of the food system which feeds most people in the world, and thus be clearer about the research policies and practices needed to enhance it.

•   The dominant food systems in the world are local, small-scale and organic food webs, not giant supermarkets chained to industrial commodity production that is destroying livelihoods, local markets and the environment. 70 per cent of the global population eats local food grown and harvested mainly by small-scale farmers, gardeners, livestock keepers and artisanal fishers – and they do this mostly without recourse to proprietary chemicals and seeds.
•   There is a rising tide of support, backed by the International Agriculture Assessment ( IAASTD), for more ecological, environmentally-friendly and health-enhancing approaches to food production that will enhance agricultural biodiversity, soils, water and climate. It’s matched by an equally strong rejection of corporate control over, and speculation in, food, production and landgrabs.
•   European and international debates on the food system are raising awareness and increasing pressure for political accountability in: changing Europe’s CAP Common Agriculture Policy); enforcing global environmental governance at Rio+20 and the climate change and biodiversity conventions; defining a Global Strategic Framework for securing future food by the renewed UN Committee for World Food Security ; and resetting priorities for global agricultural research at GCARD2012 (Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development).
•   The International Peasant Farmers’ Movement, La Vía Campesina, and related social movements, which represent the views of the world’s small-scale food providers, have a well-developed policy framework, Food Sovereignty. This would secure future food if their more ecological production systems can be supported and protected and if they are decisively involved in setting priorities for resource use, investment, markets and agricultural research, development and production.

                 They know what needs doing and how to do it.

Yet, it seems the research establishment, in hock to Big Agriculture, is blind to these needs and opportunities. The Financial Times reporting on the BASF decision to relocate its GM research to the USA quoted a senior researcher in biosciences, Professor Jonathan Jones from the Sainsbury Lab in Norwich as saying: “ The psychological damage is that it will tell the next young people who might want to go into plant science that they can’t bring anything exciting to market… and it also discourages government support if [GM technology] is not going to be deployed in Europe.”

He may be correct with his second point if UK government priorities are still wedded to promoting GM technologies – perhaps some neo-colonial dream in which the UK fixes a new world order that will secure commodity supplies from other countries using their cheaper labour and our (proprietary) technologies and knowledge.

But ‘ psychological damage of young people’ ? Isn’t this more likely to be the result of the ‘cognitive dissonance’ caused by such an extreme mis-match between what is needed to feed the world and what they are being asked to do by Big Science?

Today, there can be no greater scientific challenge in the food system than how to shift it towards a more ecological and healthier form of production and consumption that can be controlled locally. These systems are more productive per area of land or drop of water – and more sustainable, carbon neutral, biodiverse, resilient and locally determined – than industrial commodity production. Science should embrace the challenge.

A new generation of agricultural scientists could be encouraged, building on the example of many pioneers, to work with knowledgeable small-scale food providers to enable that shift to take place. Using improved tools for analysing biological, economic, legal and social systems they could enrich understanding, enhance local knowledge and practice and strengthen local communities’ and social movements’ control over the use of their common resources for securing localised food systems.

Big Agriculture and Big Science won’t like this – it won’t enrich corporate coffers – but the majority will.

We should build on the energy generated by the food sovereignty movement that calls for public support and better governance to transform the food system.

Now is the time to keep up the momentum and to gather enthusiastic young people into democratically controlled agricultural research, development and production systems fit to realise food sovereignty.

Also posted on the Ecologist, 25th January 2012

www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/1218848/uk_needs_scientific_research_into_agroecology_not_gm.html

An era of innovation for the poor?

Simon Trace
January 6th, 2012

In the 19th Decmber 2011 issue of the magazine New Statesman, Bill Gates authored an opinion piece on why he believes that “the world is on the cusp of finally unleashing innovation for the poorest”. As evidence he cites a number of examples including the development of new varieties of maize that can be 50% more tolerant of drought, a breakthough last year in the development of a more accurate and simple TB test, the Serum Institute of India releasing a low cost vaccine for meningitis A, and recent examples of technology transfer from Brazil and China.

Bill Gates has, in recent years, consistently raised the issue of a ‘tragic misallocation of resources’ in global technology research and development, complaining in an often referenced TED talk a couple of years ago that more money is spent annually on research a cure for male baldness than for a vacinne for malaria. He is absolutely right to raise this as an issue and a barrier to the poor having access to the technologies they need to achieve a reasonable standard of living.

But the New Statesman article reads as if technological innovation is all that is needed to end poverty (e.g. “Yes we have a global food crisis. But with innovators all over the world focussed on the problem, we also have a good chance to fix it”). But its not. Many of the technologies poor people need already exist, and in some cases have been in existance for centuries. Its their inability to access to them that is the core issue – due to a assortment of barriers ranging from simple affordability, to the poor having no voice in decisions around allocation of investments for basic services.

We need innovation not only in technology itself, but also innovation to over come the social, political and economic barriers that prevent poor people from accessing existing technology and that prevent innovation really focussing on the interests of the poor. So, for example, we need innovation to help utilities in urban centres in the developing world overcome their reluctance to provide water, sanitation and electricity supplies to the residents of informal settlements and shanty towns, which often make up half or more of the population of developing country cities. And, in an era where governments have largely handed over resonsibility for technology R&D to the private sector, we need ways of sponsoring research and innovation into knowledge which cannot be commodified but which is never the less helpful to the fight against poverty – for example research into improving the productivity of traditional agro ecological forms of agriculture.

Like Bill Gates, I too am an optimist. I believe this is possible and that a growing number of people are beginning to understand and respond to the challenge.