Exploring Agriculture To Reduce Poverty

Posted August 15, 2006 in News

Five countries are meeting in Johannesburg on 16 August to investigate sustainable agricultural methods suitable for the African continent that would help alleviate poverty. A Global Horticulture Initiative has just been launched to build a network combining the expertise and knowledge of horticulture experts in developing countries. Four key areas have been defined: examining the link between horticultural products and health issues; horticultural developments in an urban setting; adding value to products and distribution chain; and fourthly, fostering sustainable agricultural practices.

The Global Horticulture Initiative hopes that by developing a network system, they can overcome some of the typical barriers to successful horticulture: including difficult access to markets, extremely low prices yet high demand for quality and quantity and diversity, which simply can not be met by isolated.

One suggestion that I would make to both the conference and intiatives, and anyone else working in this area, is that there needs to be developed an ongoing accessible database to successful farming techniques and other sustainable practices. The kind of thing that John Pilger would refer to as "slow news" or "no news". Three examples that spring to mind:

• More intensive rice farming techniques that yield a 10-fold increase with only 10% of the seed used in "traditional" measures - as found in Cambodia (and is probably a damning indictment of some rice seed merchants centuries ago who wanted to make profits and foster dependency in their local villagers).
• Compost toilets and how to encourage their use - as explored by the Nicaraguans.
• Manufacture of solar ovens using materials within reach of the poor.

All three solutions have proven their viability, but because no one can make a lot of money out of it (and in the rice example actually would lose income), the information and techniques are not readily available.

Sources: Acra Daily Mail and Freshplaza.com

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