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Turning the Rising Tide of Hunger

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Turning the Rising Tide of Hunger TURNING THE RISING TIDE FAO and EU Food Facility OF HUNGER When food prices hit record highs in 2007-2008, levels in Africa, Asia and Latin America, touching the lives of more than of hunger in the world reached unacceptable levels. nine million people in rural areas. Today, nearly one out of six persons on earth is undernourished. Targeting the transition period from emergency aid to longer-term The European Union (EU) responded quickly and massively with development, FAO is helping to boost agricultural production by the € 1 billion EU Food Facility (EUFF), a two-year programme to working with local communities and farmer organizations on quality help developing countries move towards long-term food security, agricultural inputs, seed and livestock production, extension, access launched in 2009. to markets, storage, irrigation and conservation agriculture. Set up in close collaboration with the UN Secretary-General’s A small portion of funds were diverted to contribute to relief High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis, the Food efforts following emergencies in countries where FAO was already Facility focuses on programmes with a quick and lasting impact on operating Food Facility projects, such as Haiti and Pakistan. food security. EUFF projects are embedded in government policies for food Over € 228 million (US$ 315 million) is being channelled through security and poverty reduction and are in line with government FAO, allowing the Organization to field operations in 28 countries programmes to address the food price crisis. Pakistan / GIVING SMALLSCALE FARMERS THE MEANS TO GROW Botay Wala – Farmers in this village Yet, Shabaan can be considered among in Pakistan’s Punjab province were lucky. the luckier farmers of his village. Some of The 2010 floods did not hit them or their his peers have grown so discouraged that land. But, as Mohammad Shabaan, a they have sold their land and moved to 29-year old farmer explains, they have the city in search of work. Shabaan on the their own trouble. Soaring expenses are other hand combines farming with a part- one: over the past two years, the price time job at a seed production company. of fertilizer more than tripled. “I can’t Meanwhile, his wheat harvest still covers afford to buy enough,” Shabaan says. his household consumption needs. In October 2009, 300 smallholder And he would like to keep it that way, farmers in Botay Wala received seed and he smiles. Recently married, he thinks it fertilizer, just in time for the upcoming best to wait a while before having children. wheat planting season. They were among the 97 500 farmers throughout the country who FAO provided with EUFF contributes to Pakistan flood relief the means to grow food under a In the summer of 2010 Pakistan suffered the worst flooding it has ever known. Some € 24 million EUFF project in Pakistan. EUFF funds were immediately reallocated to contribute to FAO’s large-scale distribution “Rural areas have been doubly hit,” says Faizul Bari, FAO’s project manager. of planting material, which has allowed nearly five million people to grow food during Prices of food, seed and fertilizer are the first planting season following the floods. Two million seven hundred thousand higher in the countryside than in the city, euros (US$ 3.5 million) of EUFF funds were used to reach flood-affected households while the rural population earns less. with wheat, canola and vegetable seeds and fertilizer. Lesotho / INPUTS FOR THE RURAL POOR Ha Barete – A broken down local suppliers offer a variety of seeds, Today, he is toiling in his garden, tractor is the showpiece of 70-year- tools and fertilizer. Farmers like hoeing patches of soil that had old Ralesoai Makhorole‘s yard. It Makhorole “purchase” the inputs of compacted during recent hard rains. has not worked for years though. their choice using a voucher system. Locusts ate his emergent cabbage Since Makhorole stopped working Thanks to the success of this crop, but with cabbage seed from in a mine in South Africa a decade ago, approach the ministry has started the fair he is now replanting. his family’s survival depends on three using fairs for other purposes, says His prognosis for next year’s cropping acres of maize and sugar beans that Deputy Principal Secretary Liteboho season is upbeat. “I’m going to save he grows through a sharecropping Stephen Mofubetsoana. For example, to seed from what I am growing. I hope to arrangement and on a vegetable promote open-pollinated seeds among double my acreage of beans and maize.” garden downhill from his house. poor farmers, as an alternative for Still he laments the tractor that Makhorole is one of 36 000 farmers hybrid seeds, which they can’t afford. stands as a reminder of what might be. who received agricultural inputs through After the trade fair Makhorole “If it was working, it would have done FAO’s EUFF project in Lesotho. said: “I will have enough produce to wonders.” The tractor will continue Together with the Ministry of consume and make money. That will to sit idle. But at least the Makhorole Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS), help me pay for my son in school.” family can picture better times ahead. FAO organizes Input Trade Fairs where Liberia / BUILDING SKILLS TO BOOST RICE CROP Tappita – Elizabeth Roberts learned learned how to turn overgrown swamps to cultivate rice from her parents, who into lowland rice fields, how to improve had learnt it from their parents. She also rice yields and quality throughout the learned that it was not unusual to lose growth cycle, use various techniques to much of the year’s crop after harvest. protect the rice from pests, and how to Roberts, 44, has become part of add to the value of the crop with proper an ambitious national plan to boost post-harvest processing and storage. the production, quality, durability Sarah Mendoabar, mayor of Tappita, and marketability of Liberia’s says female-headed households rice crop. The plan is funded in have been especially hard hit by and filled with steaming, parboiled part by the EU Food Facility with higher food prices in recent years. rice. This, she learned, would help to technical support from FAO. In addition to training, they have preserve nutrients in the rice grains, Straddling a dirt embankment in a also received seeds, fertilizer and and increase their marketability. rice field in her village Tappita, Roberts pest-control supplies from FAO. Roberts now helps to train other explains that she and other members For Roberts, the most surprising members of the Tappita Women’s of the Tappita Women’s Structure, a part of the training was the sight of a Structure. “I’ll pull my women together. cooperative of female farmers, have large metal vat, poised over a wood fire We will share what we learn.” Nicaragua / REVIVING AGRICULTURAL POTENTIAL Pantasma – In one of Nicaragua’s basket, turned into a wasteland. seeds, as well as fertiliser. Yields were most fertile valleys, malnutrition is Although the war is long ago, not all double that of the national average, rife. This is a high-potential area, the scars have healed. Recent shocks, such says Offman Salinas, FAO’s project where the EU and FAO help small- as high food prices in 2007-2008 and a supervisor for northern Nicaragua. scale farmers increase their yields. drought in 2009, have put increasing strain Farmers also get training in “Land has been our primary asset,” says on the livelihoods of many. According to agricultural techniques, such as pest Ramiro Rizo, a farmer from Pantasma. Carlos Villagra, an official of Pantasma’s control, crop rotation and storage. Capacity “It is thanks to the land that we survive.” city council, almost one out of five persons building is one solution, says Salinas: Survival has not been always easy in in town is chronically underfed. “Reducing poverty starts with education.” this northern Nicaraguan town, located FAO, with € 3 million from the Sitting on the porch of his ranch on one of the frontlines of the civil war EU Food Facility, helps Nicaraguan overlooking the valley, Rizo recounts that ravaged the country in the 1980s. organizations of smallscale farmers how after the war his family started “You could hardly work,” Rizo boost the productivity of staple crops, like coming back. Now they’re reunited. recalls. Many of his family members beans, maize and rice. Areas with a high According to him, it is all about land. fled. The valley of Pantasma, named agricultural potential, such as the valley “If you have nowhere to sow, you have after the river that flows through it, once of Pantasma, are especially targeted. no harvest. That’s where poverty is.” considered Central America’s bread Each farmer receives quality bean Burkina Faso / A SEED CHAIN REACTION Kokologo – Pauline Koné, a she earns should cover the coming government worker in the capital lean period. Otherwise, her family Ouagadougou, says: “In February will be forced to eat the seeds needed 2008 women united and marched for the following planting season. in protest against the high cost of “You can really feel the extreme living. The price of rice had risen from fragility,” says Jean-Pierre Renson, 11 000 to 35 000 CFA francs (from FAO’s emergency coordinator for € 17 to € 53) for a 50-kilo bag!” Burkina. He explains that a total of Some 45km to the south, in the 400 000 vulnerable households benefit village of Kokologo, Koumba Kabré feels from FAO’s € 18 million EU Food selling the seeds Yacouba not only overwhelmed. She has six children to Facility operation in the country.
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