World Food Day- what are the poor doing to secure food?#BAD2011

October 16, 2011 By idahorner 2 Comments

It is that time of the year again! It is Blog Action Day 2011 which has coincided with WORLD FOOD DAY

Food or the availability of food in Africa is something I write about a great deal on this blog- but when I learned that this year’s topic is FOOD I wondered what I could possibly write about this topic that I haven’t already written about?

The organisers put forward some suggestions including writing about one’s favourite foods. I love food and choosing a favourite food is a tall order but if I had to choose a staple or something I could eat daily and not complain it would be a combination of BBQ or Grilled chicken and a garden salad or Tilapia cooked in any form, mangoes and Avocados.

Back to today’s task though I would like you to help me answer the question

WHAT ARE THE POOR DOING TO SECURE FOOD?

You might wonder whether this is even possible and you would be right, for the odds are stacked against the poor when it comes to food. The poor pay more for food the land on which they are meant to grow their food is being taken away from them and sold to the rich and if that is not enough land is also taken to provide alternative fuel for the rich because they are guilty about polluting the environment.

The UN has set a goal to end extreme hunger surely it is not up to the poor to secure their own food, is it? I would answer this with another. What does this mean in reality? Does the UN hand out food to the poor?

Yes but the food that is meant for the poor does not always get to them

If you have read this far and are thinking this is depressing don’t go just yet

Please allow me to introduce you to James.

I met James in November last year at the Villages in Action conference in Masindi Uganda James – owns the only Grain Mill and bicycle repair shop called TUYAMBAGANE GRAIN MILLERS- literary translated it means LET US HELP EACH OTHER

James is an older man possibly 60 years old and very easy to like and he provides two very vital services to his community. Grain milling- James says that he and his family started this business in 2004 as they wanted something that could bring them a daily income. He explained that the business name was deliberate and reflects the relationship between his service and the village – he provides a service to the village and in turn that brings him income. The impact of this business on the village is easy to dismss until you take a closer look.

James’ service enables folk in the village without electricity or factories to preserve food for leaner times the easiest way to preserve food is turn into flour which is easy to store. The grain miller facility is very simple and is located in what we in the west would consider a shed but has far reaching consequences for those that rely on it. For you see whilst here in the West food wastage occurs between the supermarket and fridge in villages such as James’ food wastage occurs between the garden and the kitchen- another reason why the poor can’t secure their food

James' shop sign

Here is James helping prepare the ground the day before the conference

James

At the day of the conference James shared his story with the world. he was part of the village business panel and here he is (seated in the middle) with his fellow panellists

This is the shed that houses James’ grain mill

and here is sneak preview on how things work inside the Grain mill
Bicycle repairing- bicycles are the most common means of personal transport in Kikuube and as any means of transport the bicycles do break down and need repairing. I asked James the significance of bicycle ownership in the village. http://youtu.be/5t_bNWC7ov4

It enables farmers to get their produce to market without bicycles it would be near impossible as the market is a long a way away nearly half a day’s walk

So as you can see it is not all doom and gloom out there. Please join the conversation. help me answer the question I started out with- what can the poor doing to secure food? Is there anything they can realistically do?

Filed Under: food distribution, Latest Tagged With: #bad11, Africa, Blog Action Day 2011, famine, Food and Agriculture Organization, food security, MASINDI, MDGs, Somalia, United Nations, World Food Day

Business fights poverty in South Sudan

July 17, 2011 By ethnicsupplies 2 Comments

Cassava is an important food crop in the Repub...

Cassava plant Image via Wikipedia

South Sudan is the newly formed country in Africa and has been recognised by the UN and the international community unlike Somaliland . But the question on everyone’s lips is WHAT NEXT FOR SOUTH SUDAN? this 25 minute video clip from the Broadcaster Aljzeera articulates the challenges and in part opportunities that lay ahead fro this newly formed nation.

One way that South Sudan will rebuild itself will be via inward investment and some businesses have been quick off the mark and headed down to South Sudan to seize those new opportunities.

With that out of the way this post is part of the #30dayblog challenge and for this task I am looking at someone else’s post and giving it my own slant. The post I have selected was posted on Business Fights Poverty

Business investment and expertise can play a significant part in the future of South Sudan

I applaud SABMILLER‘s innovation by way of coming up with products that mean local people can be included in their business strategy as suppliers. By so doing this makes them a responsible and inclusive business. But I have one major concern here

FOOD SECURITY!

and if you follow/read this blog regularly you will note that this is a subject that is close to my heart and one that I keep returning to time and time again. In my last post I addressed the question- what is the role of NGO’s in the distribution of food.

In South Sudan SABMILLER have taken a food crop Cassava and used it to come up with a new product (a brand of beer) in Uganda they used sorghum for the same purpose. Whilst this brings a new products to which value has been added at source, creates new jobs and includes local farmers in the supply chain both Cassava and Sorghum are food crops.

Questions that spring to mind

this region is susceptible to food shortages- should food crops be diverted to other uses such as beer or even bio fuels?
What is being done about food security?

I note from the article that SABMILLER has teamed up with FARM AFRICA and NGO that works with farmers in this part of Africa. Unfortunately the article does not tell us much about this relationship especially as it affects food security. OK, one might argue that the article was not about food security in South Sudan but in my mind this is probably going to be one of the greatest challenges this new country faces

So over to you folk, have you got a view on any of the issues raised here? If so please do leave me a comment if not please consider sharing this post with someone who might have a view

Filed Under: Business, food distribution, Latest Tagged With: Africa, FARM AFRICA, food security, SABMILLER, Somaliland, Southern Sudan, Sudan

Food, Disease and Poverty in Africa

May 31, 2011 By ethnicsupplies 3 Comments

Today we are looking at TAGS in Nikki P’s 30 day blogging challenge and oh if you missed yesterday’s post here it is . Nikki describes TAGS as key words for your blog and advises that each posts should have 4 or 5 .

A quick scan of the posts here and I came up with these tags FOOD, DISEASE AND POVERTY IN AFRICA and there are the basis of today’s post

Food- The poor are paying more for their food, population growth will affect food availability and food availability faces anew challenge from the desire for biofuels. If you would like more details on this issue I would strongly recommend The Guardian’s Poverty blog

The issue off food availability is one I return to on this blog time and time again previous posts have included

The Oxfam boss Barbara Stocking raised some interesting points in her report

there is enough food to feed the world , but the challenge is the poor cannot afford it and they spend 80%of their income on food
small farmers should not be driven off their land as they are capable of contributing to world food shortages and all that happens is that they end up in urban areas as the urban poor
food should not be traded on the derivatives markets

I would agree with the Oxfam boss on all 3 points and I covered some of those points in the 8 posts listed above. Evidence on the ground especially Uganda – where I hail from shows that a lot of food goes to waste in some parts of the country whilst in others folk are literary starving, the growing of Pine appears to have given way to food growing in some parts, urban areas are busting at the seams as folk leave the rural areas in search of a better life in the city. These very folk soon discover that there is nothing for them to do in the city and take to hanging around at street corners.

Point number 3 concerns me for 2 reasons

a new phenomena called Land grab or the scramble for Africa’s land- whilst this land is take up for bio fuels/to grow food for the wealthy of Europe, Asia and the Arab world the Africans are going hungry
whilst agricultural /farming methods in some parts of Africa should be brought up to date to increase output – none of that food goes towards the hungry and poor of Africa. How can we moral justify the trading of food in such away as to leave some hungry and starving

In one of the posts I wrote about a point raised by the think Tank CHATHAM – who said that in order to address the issue of food shortage, we need to work out how to secure the food we have- in the west food is wasted between the fridge and the plate whilst in developing nations food is wasted between the fields and the plate. In developing nations there is an urgent need to come with ways to preserve food once it leaves the fields/farms.

Disease- The disease I write about the most here is MALARIA but have you heard about the NEGLECTED TROPIC DISEASES ( NTDs) and how they impact economic development. A few weeks ago I attended an event at The London School of Economics and Prof Tim Allen took us through the impact of parasites on their hosts. Since then this topic has been covered by in The Guardian and by Sight Savers . But if these diseases are treatable and have such impact on people’s lives why are they neglected?

Elephantiasis- image from wikimedia.org

According to Prof Tim Allen, the answer lies in the fact that these diseases affected neglected people and as such they are diseases of the neglected people or the poor! But if someone is riddled with parasites such as worms that they cannot work should we not spend some of the Aid money on treating/eliminating such parasites?

Poverty in Africa: this is the tag I use the most and the explanation is here but that aside, as shown in the other tags- the poor in Africa are likely to go hungry, be neglected and suffer ill health.

When fighting poverty should we seek to eliminate causes of poverty and is this about throwing money at problems or are there steps we could take to secure good health and access to food for all? It would also appear we already have an answer to the food crisis- resolve the waste and get the food to those that need it. The question is why are we not doing it?

Please share your views

Filed Under: food distribution, Latest, Poverty, Poverty in Africa Tagged With: Africa, Barbara Stocking, Food Crisis, food security, Oxfam, Poverty, Poverty in Africa, Tim Allen