The pair of oxen alone puts him ahead of many poor farmers in this northern part of the country. Harnessed as a team, the animals give Tadesse the power he needs to plow his fields in a timely manner and to be ready for the rains when they fall. But if they don’t come, he’s now experimenting with a tool that will soften the blow: weather insurance.
Tadesse, who lives in the village of Hade Alga, is one of the more than 13,000 small farmers who are participating in a new insurance initiative launched by Oxfam and a host of partners, including the Relief Society of Tigray, or REST. The program allows those too poor to have cash on hand to pay for the insurance by working on environmental improvement projects that benefit the whole community—like planting trees. Tadesse is among the small percent of farmers able to pay with money.
When rainfall drops below a predetermined threshold, insured farmers receive a payout helping them to recover some of their losses from a failed or severely curtailed harvest.
“Everyone in this community is starting to understand the rationale of the insurance, so we want to continue this practice,” said Tadesse, sitting with his wife and two young children in their one-room home on a rainy morning in August. But he admitted that the idea took a little getting used to. “We were skeptical when we heard (about )it. We were even confused. How can you cover the loss of crops? It’s god’s work.”
After a great deal of discussion among community members, and many questions for REST, the idea began to click with people, Tadesse said. The local belief system holds that if you expect good things to happen, they will, and farmers are beginning to embrace insurance as part of that thinking, he added.
In 2010, Tadesse spent 60 birr—or about $3.50—on insurance for his teff, a staple grain in Ethiopia. As it turned out, the rains were plentiful that year and his harvest was very good, negating the need for a payout. But that didn’t stop him from doubling his investment in insurance the next year, paying 120 birr for a premium that would provide him with 400 birr—or $23,17—to cover his potential losses. The expense felt like a smart move.
“Anything can happen,” said Tadesse. “As security for me, I decided to double it. Even in the future I may double it again. You wish for better (rain), but you also have to accommodate the worst. In the future I don’t know what will happen, so that’s why I’m paying. But if the rain is good, I don’t regret paying that amount of money.”
The insurance has given him a sense of greater security, too, Tadesse said, so much so that he now has the confidence to take out a loan for livestock production. Once the rainy season ended, he planned to borrow money to buy a small herd of sheep and goats.
“If you buy four or eight sheep, they’ll reproduce in a short period of time,” said Tadesse. “It’s a good source of income for my family. It makes our life comfortable.”
With the stability he is striving to create for his family—in an environment made increasingly uncertain by changing weather patterns—Tadesse said he hopes his children will go far in school, an opportunity that stopped for him after fifth grade when he had to quit to work on his family’s farm and help care for his aging parents.
“I’m very confident my children will go further—up to where they can reach,” Tadesse said. “Education helps you use your capacity, not only in farming but in trading—in every part of life. If you’re educated you introduce new ideas into your agricultural practices. You analyze the future. It all needs education.”
And with the bit of security insurance is now providing, the dreams Tadesse has for his family have moved a little closer. Soon, other small farmers in Africa will have a chance at greater security, too: The weather insurance program, now called the Rural Resilience Initiative, or R4, is set to expand into Senegal and two other countries in partnership with the World Food Programme.
]]>This means acting on information from early warning systems and not waiting for certainty before responding, as well as tackling the root causes of vulnerability and actively seeking to reduce risk in all activities. To achieve this, we must overcome the humanitarian-development divide.
]]>The forecast predicts this short wet season will bring an average amount of rainfall to Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Coupled with humanitarian assistance and anticipated decreases in locally produced cereal prices, the rain means that the food security situation in Kenya and Ethiopia is likely to improve over the next few months. But in southern Somalia, the situation remains dire, with an estimated four million people in crisis and 750,000 men and women experiencing famine.
In many areas of the region emergency conditions are expected to persist well into 2012. Households remain extremely vulnerable to additional shocks as the severe drought has depleted herders’ assets and reduced crop production. Several good seasons are required to rebuild herd sizes, improve harvests, and reduce debt levels.
In some areas flooding and mudslides are common during the rainy season. For example, in Ethiopia’s Somalia region localized flash floods have already been reported in areas along the Wabishabelle river, affecting an estimated 18,000 people with damage to crops and livestock.
The rain and a drop in temperature are also likely to kill cattle that have already been weakened by a lack of food and water—further undermining the ability of herding families to earn a living and recover from the drought.
In addition, the rains and the risk of contamination of water sources can lead to an increase in water-borne diseases such as typhoid fever, acute watery diarrhoea (AWD), cholera, and hepatitis A. Outbreaks of vector-borne diseases, particularly those spread by mosquitos, such as malaria, dengue and Rift Valley Fever are likely during the rainy season, and increases in cases of pneumonia and respiratory tract infections are common. More than 1,200 cases of dengue have been confirmed in Kenya’s Mandera District since Sept. 23. Flooding in Turkana and Pokot, areas in northwest Kenya, has caused a spread of malaria in the Upper Rift Valley, with outbreaks in Turkana, Kakuma, and surrounding districts.
Displaced people within Somalia and those who have crossed into Kenya and Ethiopia are particularly vulnerable as many of them are living in overcrowded conditions, with limited access to water and sanitation facilities and inadequate shelter. Outbreaks of measles, acute watery diarrhoea (AWD), cholera, malaria, and pneumonia have already been reported in camps in Mogadishu. In Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya five measles-related deaths and 113 cases were reported during the last week of September.
But as people’s needs increase, the rain makes it harder to reach them: Rivers flood their banks, bridges break or get washed away, and roads become impassable. In Ethiopia, access to refugee camps in Dollo Ado is already challenging as the rains make airstrips and roads impassable.
In Kenya, Oxfam is mapping the accessibility of certain areas and working with partners to devise contingency plans to meet the needs of people there. Public health promotion teams are doing environmental clean-up and awareness-raising campaigns. Boreholes are being rehabilitated and chlorine kits and water purification tabs have been distributed. In the areas where Oxfam has been distributing cash to vulnerable households which will be cut off during the rains, a double payment was made to cover the period between October and November so people do not go without.
In Ethiopia Oxfam has expanded its public health promotion and acute watery diarrhea preparedness activities, with a particular focus on women who manage water and sanitation at the household level. Oxfam teams are working with aid groups and other local partners to ensure a strong response to any outbreaks of acute watery diarrhea. As the rains commence, water trucking is being reduced and teams are supporting regional and zonal authorities to ensure emergency stocks and water treatment kits can be mobilized. Cash for work activities and market-support activities are ongoing and animal health interventions, such as vouchers for veterinary visits and vaccinations, have started up.
In Somalia Oxfam partners have been preparing for outbreaks of acute watery diarrhea by setting up distribution posts in camps for displaced people. The posts contain oral rehydration sachets, sugar, salt, soap for washing hands, and chlorine bleach. Partners have also increased the frequency and methods for public health messaging and are working with committees to oversee the water and sanitation services.
In Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, the UN, government, and non-governmental groups have prepared contingency plans to respond to any increase in needs: Strong coordination and monitoring is essential.
The delivery of food aid remains a key concern. In Kenya the World Food Programme (WFP) has reported delays in food aid distribution in Wajir, Garissa and Mandera as roads are impassable. Roads in Garissa and Hola, key entry points into the Dadaab refugee camps, are completely cut off.
Ongoing conflict, insecurity, and restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Somalia are the key factors which will hinder a more effective response to the increased needs caused by the rains. For example, armed groups in many parts of South Central Somalia are not allowing mass public immunization campaigns despite outbreaks of deadly diseases like measles.
The recent military incursion by Kenyan forces into Somalia, as well as insecurity in refugee camps on the Kenyan side of the border, is also impacting on the humanitarian situation in certain areas of Kenya and Somalia. Fighting in Somalia is likely to cause further civilian displacement and casualties at a time when thousands of people risk imminent death due to famine.
]]>Balcha, a 36-year-old widow, has brought us to her home here in the Ethiopian community of Mallima Bari as a sort of bench mark—a way for us to understand where she is in her life at this moment and where she’s determined to go now that she has access to irrigation and the support of a network of other small farmers like herself.
“I will reconstruct my house and show you a better house,” says Balcha firmly. “When I change my house, I will make you coffee.” In Ethiopia, ceremoniously serving guests coffee—three piping hot cups per person—is an important social tradition.
Recently, Balcha joined a group participating in a project launched by Oxfam America’s partner, Sustainable Environment and Development Action, or SEDA. Tapping a well that they helped dig and that SEDA and Oxfam outfitted with a pump and pipes, Balcha and 34 other farmers are funneling water to nine hectares of land--about 24 acres, or a little more than half an acre each. Now, at last, they are free from worry about whether the rain will come on time and in sufficient quantity to guarantee their harvests. With a flick of a switch, they have water on demand—water to feed their crops and build their dreams.
Sitting in front of a field crowded with tall corn, Balcha beams with a surety that would not have been possible a year or so ago. Grief consumed her then: Her oldest child, a 9-year-old boy, had drowned one day while she was away working as a laborer. His dream had been to go to school and he had begged her to send him. But Balcha didn’t have the means.
“He asked me, ‘please, my mom, buy me an exercise book,” she recalled. Her answer? “Next year I can buy you an exercise book and clothes, but this year we don’t even have food.”
Two months later, she said, the terrible accident happened.
In the year that followed, burdened by needs that she could barely meet, Balcha said she thought about leaving her family and running away.
“I was confused,” she said softly.
It was around then that she learned of the irrigation project and the opportunity to join it.
“I was suffering before I joined this project because I didn’t have my husband. I didn’t have any support,” said Balcha. ”Now I have clothes for my body, food for my stomach, and my field is in good condition. When you are hungry, you can’t think of getting satisfied. When you are thirsty you can’t think of getting enough water. But now I’m satisfied.”
Balcha’s story speaks for others in a district where many rural residents make their living by raising animals and cultivating crops on fields fed only by rain. But it’s a hard life—and sometimes an impossible one. In this Central Rift Valley, severe food shortages are a frequent problem.
Without money to put into better production—fertilizer for plants, and infrastructure for irrigation—farmers can’t easily coax much from their land. Instead, like Balcha, they rent their fields to investors who can afford the technology to reap bountiful harvests. And sometimes, small farmers become day laborers on land that is theirs, working for someone else’s profit instead of their own.
But for the group now tilling this 24-acre plot, a reliable source of water could change their lives and the lives of their families. The project is part of a broader Oxfam America water program, set to run through 2020, that works with communities and local partners to help some of the poorest Ethiopians in moisture-stressed regions access water for their fields and animals and manage the resource in a sustainable fashion. With water comes food—and resilience.
Here, in Mallima Bari, the hope is that farmers will begin to cultivate valuable market crops—onions, tomatoes, green peppers, cabbages—that could boost their incomes. From the sale of their harvests, participants, who have formed the Mallima Gale Small-Scale Irrigation Co-op, will pool 10 percent of their earnings toward keeping the irrigation enterprise running. One of the biggest costs is fuel, now running at about 17 birr per liter—close to $4 a gallon. It takes about six liters of fuel each time a farmer pumps water through a half-acre field.
But it’s not just the pump and water that have brightened prospects for Balcha, it’s the deeper connection she has made with her neighbors in the irrigation group and the spirit of cooperation.
“We have very good collaboration,” says Balcha, noting that she had her fields plowed with the help of co-op members and their oxen. Ethiopians measure their land in hectares. One hectare is nearly equal to 2.5 acres. Balcha’s irrigated plot of corn measures a quarter hectare. In addition, she has a half-hectare of rain-fed corn and a quarter hectare of Ethiopia’s staple grain, teff, which is also dependent on the rain.
New agricultural techniques she learned through SEDA could help her crops do better than they have in the past, and the results so far have made her optimistic. She is planting her corn in rows now instead of broadcasting it loosely, and expects the December harvest will produce enough to feed her family as well as some to sell.
“Physically, it looks healthy,” says Balcha. “When you look at it, you get encouraged.”
And with that feeling of encouragement comes the taste of possibility: For Balcha, that means school for her children—an opportunity she never had.
“Had I had an education, I would have been someone better than I am now,” says Balcha. “I’m in darkness myself. I want them to be in light.”
]]>It's the Gurracho River, tumbling through boulders and swelling across the lowlands below, its roar muffled to a whisper-a whisper of possibility—by the brush climbing the steep banks.
In this drought-plagued corner of Ethiopia's West Arsi Zone, the river has long called out to small-scale farmers scratching a living from land fed only by rain. Without resources—money, engineering skills, heavy machinery—families in Dawe kebele had no easy way to tap the river's potential as an irrigation source even as they hungered for what it could bring them: reliable harvests, food on their tables, and desperately needed income for household essentials, like medical care and school fees.
But now, from the head works deep in the brush above where Magarsa and Saworo live with their nine children, a new network of pipes, concrete-lined canals, and earthen channels is funneling the precious Gurracho River directly to 404 farmers tilling 200 hectares of land, or 494 acres. The water is changing their lives.
With support from Oxfam America, the Rift Valley Children and Women development Organization, or RCWDO, began working on the Ejersa small-scale irrigation project in 2007 to help local families increase the income from their farms and expand their employment opportunities. Fed entirely by gravity, the new system is allowing farmers to cultivate their fields year round—whether it rains or not—and to grow food not only to eat but to sell.
"We are encouraging farmers to engage in the production of high-value crops for the market," says Hussien Dalecha, a program manager for RCWDO. "If you simply depend on traditional practices and growing maize and wheat one time a year on small plots, that's not sufficient for household consumption and expenses."
But with access to fertilizer, improved seeds, and most important of all, water, farming families can make their land highly productive—in some cases more than tripling the value of their yields. Coupled with the infrastructure, farmers have also received training in new growing techniques and the importance of diversifying their crops. At a neighborhood nursery, managed by the farmer's cooperative, neat rows of onions, peppers, kale, and tomatoes-among a variety of other edibles-serve as examples of what's possible. And farmers are taking the lessons to heart.
"We have farmland but lacked knowledge," said one farmer, Obbo Bshura. "As a result, we often couldn't feed our family on the meager yield of crops...Through the project we were taught irrigation methods and diversification techniques that were previously unpracticed in our community. Our production increased."
For Magarsa and Saworo, irrigation has brought their family a new sense of certainty, a feeling that, with hard work, their dreams do stand a chance of materializing.
"I have the confidence hereafter I can easily keep my children in school,"said Saworo, 45, who longed to be able to continue beyond the ninth grade himself. "I was eager to be a nurse or a doctor before. But it was a problem for me to continue my education. I didn't have any support from anywhere. If I can't achieve my ambitions, my child should go."
And one of them has. The couple's oldest son, Guta Bati, 22, graduated in July from Kuyera College with a nursing degree.
To help pay for his schooling, his parents sold a cow in December, one of the few that remained from their herd of 30. In recent years, drought has taken a toll on their livestock: Some of their animals died and they sold others when their crops failed and the family needed money to buy food.
But now, with river water promising more bountiful harvests, education for the rest of the children may not require selling valuable assets: their crops may be profitable enough to cover school fees.
The family has access to one hectare of irrigated land. By August, the corn Saworo had planted earlier was ready for harvest at a time when few other farmers around had any. In a bowl passed among visitors, a snack of roasted kernels—sweet, smoky, and a little crunchy—disappeared quickly. Saworo sold a quarter hectare (.62 acre) of corn for 7,592 birr, or about $446—a sizable sum during a season of the year when normally the family has little cash available.
"It's a good income for me," said Saworo. "This is really big money."
And he wasn't going to let it lie idle. He planned to buy improved seeds—tomatoes, beets, and cabbage—for his next crop.
Magarsa, too, has had significant success with the corn she's cultivated, seeing the yield from the half hectare (1.2 acres) she works climb from 12 quintals ( 2,645 pounds) in 2009 to 32.5 quintals (7,165 pounds) this year.
"I am totally in a different life," she said, "being able to feed my children and selling the remaining (corn) to support the children in education, planning for reinvestment."
Nearby, at the home of Bushura Tasho and Jaware Aliyi, the irrigation project has helped boost income enough for the family to plan on putting a new roof on their hut. This one will be made of corrugated metal.
"Water can make a difference," said Aliyi. And not just for the farmers.
As the couple discussed the progress they were making, a woman with two donkeys wandered into their yard. She was there, she said, to purchase some of the surplus corn. Her plan was to buy about 150 birr worth (just shy of $9), load up the donkeys, port the corn to a distant community that had none, and sell it there for a slight profit of between 40 or 50 birr, or a little less than $3.
"The irrigation has already made a market here," said Dalecha, the project officer, noting how the benefits were reaching beyond farmers. Food, grown right here, was finding its way into the broader community—a community that in the past has had to depend on food aid during times of crisis.
"Relief food is aid is very expensive," said Dalecha. "Instead of feeding the people, this kind of [irrigation] scheme is very recommendable."
Oxfam America has been collaborating with communities and a variety of partners on projects like this since 1994, helping to provide families with water for their fields, for their animals, and for use in their homes. Oxfam's new long-term water program, set to run through 2020, is now focusing on three regions: Amhara, Tigray, and Oromia, of which the West Arsi Zone is a part. The program aims to strengthen the resilience of communities in the face of climate change by helping people access water and manage it sustainably for crop and livestock production.
The Ejersa small-scale irrigation project in Dawe is also part of a larger undertaking called the Global Water Initiative, or GWI. Funded by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, it's a coalition of seven international organizations, including Oxfam America, working on the challenges of providing clean water to some of the poorest people in the world for their homes and livelihoods.
]]>In a country where most farmers depend on rain to feed their crops and guarantee their harvests, that question is omnipresent: It's about survival. And there's no sure way to answer it.
But there is a way to manage the uncertainty it breeds, and Biru, with steady steps, is slowly freeing herself from the constraints of an increasingly erratic climate. Her tools? An entrepreneurial drive and—now—weather insurance for her crops through a program that has grown to reach more than 13,000 farmers in Tigray since its launch in Adi Ha in 2009.
Biru, a 50-year-old mother of six children, was among the first farmers in this rocky northern region to invest in the insurance when Oxfam America, together with the Relief Society of Tigray and a host of partners, began offering it as a way to help families build resilience in the face of repeated drought. If there is insufficient rain during a critical period of the growing cycle, farmers will receive a payout for the crop they have insured.
And even those too poor to have cash on hand can get insurance: They can pay for their premiums in exchange for working on projects that help their communities reduce the risk of future disasters , such as by planting trees to preserve the topsoil. Of the 13,195 farmers now insured, 91 percent of them, or 12,064, are trading their labor for their premiums. And many of the households that have bought insurance are headed by women—3,610 of them.
Biru has been able to pay for her insurance with cash. This year, she bought a package for 200 birr, or about $11.75. It will cover her teff, a tiny grain and a staple of the Ethiopian diet used to make a bread called injera.
In Adi Ha, the weather has not been severe enough—yet—to trigger a payout. But Biru is convinced that investing in insurance is a smart move and that the program should be scaled up to reach farmers in other parts of Ethiopia. Without the cushion insurance provides, families who lose their harvests and have nothing to fall back on could be forced to migrate far from their homes or to sell precious household resources—like a cow—to buy food.
"This insurance is very good," said Biru. "It's saving our assets in a bad year."
And perhaps it's that confidence that is also helping her take other well-considered risks that are allowing her to build a more secure future for her family.
In 2009, the first year weather insurance was available, Biru joined a group of 10 farmers and together they bought a pump to irrigate some of their crops. Her contribution was 4,000 birr—or about $235. In 2010, with the proceeds from an abundant harvest of peppers, Biru was able to pay off the loan for her share of the pump.
Soon after, she took an even bigger plunge: With a new loan, she invested 14,000 birr, or about $823, in her own pump, available to use whenever she needs it. In August, she had already reaped 2,000 birr-worth of peppers from her field, and was looking forward to continuous harvests in the future.
"This is more productive compared to maize," said Biru. "Maize you harvest once. This you harvest every week."
Peppers won't be her only cash crop from this newly irrigated land. Scattered amidst the plants are 60 orange tree seedlings and 30 mango tree seedlings.
"If we manage it very well, we can start the first harvest (from the trees) after four years," Biru said.
For all Biru's progress, farming in Tigray is not an easy undertaking. And one of the biggest challenges, she said, is the cost of fertilizer. The price keeps climbing.
"It's 1,000 birr per quintal (or about $58 for 220 pounds)," said Biru, recalling when it was a fraction of that price two decades ago. "Our land can't perform well without fertilizer, but fertilizer is very expensive…Most of our money is invested in fertilizer."
But most of her pride is invested in her children: all six of them have been able to attend school. Her oldest son has a degree in accounting and a daughter has a degree in engineering. Three of the others are still making their way through, while a middle son has decided to stop his education and assume—eventually—responsibility for his parents and the land they have worked so hard to cultivate.
Weather insurance may make his job, and the job of countless farmers like him, easier in the years ahead. The initiative is now set to expand into three new countries with the help of the World Food Programme. And its focus has broadened to promote a variety of tools that will help rural families build their resilience including access to credit, the encouragement to save, and steps to reduce the risks of disaster.
]]>Oxfam's work—whether helping Guatemalan women organize to fight gender violence, funding irrigation projects in Ethiopia, or standing with people in Darfur—is about building the resilience of local communities over the long haul. We cannot prevent shocks, but we can help our sisters and brothers access some of the same resources we have to cushion us when times are lean.
We cannot rush from crisis to crisis with short-term fixes. What more evidence do we need than what is happening in East Africa now? This is not the region's first famine, but imagine the headline: Africa's last famine.
The agriculture ministry reported that there are now 1,070,384 farmers—about 70 percent of whom are women—applying the System of Rice Intensification, or SRI, on 185,065 hectares (457,110 acres) of their rice fields. The number of farmers using SRI practices in Vietnam has tripled since 2009.
SRI is a package of good agricultural techniques for hand-planted rice that helps farmers reduce their costs. And the innovative techniques are helping the poorest rice producers on the smallest rice paddy areas boost their rice yields: When compared to traditional rice growing techniques, SRI producers can increase rice production by as much as 500 kilos (more than 1,000 pounds) per hectare. (A hectare is about 2.5 acres.) This typically increases income by about $130 per hectare, enough money to cover food costs for a month for a family of four, or invest in five piglets to raise and sell.
“There is significant evidence that lives are changing at the village level,” said Le Minh, Oxfam Associate Country Director in Vietnam. “I give most of the credit to the collaboration amongst our farmers. When they are successful, they want to share their success with families and friends.”
SRI farmers generally use less seed, sometimes as much as 70 percent less. They do this by transplanting fewer rice seedlings, and spacing them farther apart. This reduces competition for nutrients and allows the rice plants to have more room to grow stronger roots, which makes them more resistant to pests and diseases.
Inspired by their own success, farmers like Le Ngoc Thach are committed to help others. Thach attended an SRI training and visited a few demonstration fields. He gave SRI a try in 2006 and was convinced that these growing techniques would improve the lives of farmers in his cooperative. He started to spread the word. Now 2,000 families, his entire grower cooperative in northern Vietnam, are part of a network of over a million farmers who employ SRI and earn extra income.
Vuong Hoang Kim, a cooperative member in Yen Bai province, has volunteered to teach other women farmers about using SRI. “We all are very happy to see our rice plants grow very quickly and we gain a lot of benefits from these simple techniques,” she said.
Oxfam has been working with several partner organizations to promote SRI to small-scale farmers as a means to help poor farmers in Vietnam. One partner is the Plant Protection Department in the Ministry of Rural Development, which has been training farmers in SRI techniques in northern provinces of Vietnam with support from Oxfam since 2007. SRI training is part of a larger effort to help build the ability and confidence of smallholder farmers to develop agricultural innovations as a way to earn more money. The program is especially important for women in rural areas, who normally depend on agriculture for income and food.
“It’s a great achievement for small farmers because they are the ones leading the SRI innovation,” said Ngo Tien Dung of the Agriculture Ministry’s Plant Protection Department. “We need to build momentum for SRI extension over the coming years. It’s a smart investment needed to lift people out of poverty and to boost the national economy.”
Vietnam is the second largest rice exporter and accounts for one fifth of global rice supply. In 2010 the country exported 6.6 million tons, worth about $2.8 billion. Oxfam’s collaboration with the Plant Protection Department is helping small-scale farmers, who are usually the poorest, to increase their share of this business. SRI farmers now represent about 10% of all rice growers in Vietnam.
]]>High and volatile food prices are one of the biggest political issues of 2011. The pressure points map can be embedded directly into any website to give audiences an easy way to raise their voice and take action on the food price crisis. The tool is part of Oxfam’s global GROW campaign to fix the broken food system.
“The poorest people from Kansas to Yemen are suffering the impacts of high and volatile food prices,” said Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America. “Food price volatility has pushed tens of millions of people into poverty and contributed to violence and instability that is dangerous for global security and costly to American taxpayers. Meanwhile Congress has its head in the sand hoping for it all to go away.”
Food prices have hovered near an all time peak since late 2010 sending tens of millions of people into poverty. After decades of steady progress in the fight against hunger, the number of people without enough to eat is again rising and could soon again top one billion. Leaders from the US and other G-20 nations have delivered little more than band-aid solutions giving little hope to struggling communities.
The map displays countries that are highly vulnerable to price spikes, have seen price spikes contribute to violence or unrest, or have suffered extreme weather events that have contributed to price hikes. Some examples of the impacts the map reveals include:
/ENDS
The map can be found here: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/articles/food-price-spikes
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</object>To shed more light on the impacts of food price spikes, Oxfam has created an interactive map of Food Price Volatility Pressure Points. This map shows the impacts of price spikes in some of the countries where food prices have complicated the lives of poor people and offers a chance to take action on to help address price volatility.
The map shows are areas that are highly vulnerable to price spikes, countries that have had extreme weather events contribute to global price hikes and places that have seen price spikes contribute to violence or unrest that has shaken the foundation of global stability. While this map alone does not tell the full story of how price spikes have impacted our world, it offers a global snapshot to give us a better understanding of what is happening in communities near and far.
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Failed crops—often caused by our changing climate—hit food prices hard. So does the rising cost of oil—used to grow, fertilize and transport food.
Short-sighted biofuels strategies play a part too—taking food off of people's plates and putting it into car tanks. And dysfunctional commodities markets mean that food prices go up faster and higher than they should.
But despite all these complex causes, the effects on poor people are painfully simple. Parents choose between feeding their children and feeding themselves.
Whole communities face an uncertain future, because all anyone can think about is where their next meal will come from.
It's time to grow out of food price spikes.
Food price spikes happen because of things like climate change and rising oil prices—so a major part of the solution involves getting those root causes under control.
But what's also needed is more effective global handling of food price crises when they do happen. That way, the poorest families have somewhere to turn even when things do get desperate—and when they suddenly can't afford even the meager amount they could afford a week earlier.
For our world to grow together, we need to get food price spikes under control.
]]>The macroeconomics of the rising price of staples are complex, but its effect on the lives of three women interviewed by Oxfam America is simple: they feel it every day.
For María Antonia León, or “Toñita”, life has never been easy. She remembers a time when she earned $3 to $4 a day selling tamales, pastries and snacks from her food cart and was able to buy weekly staples to feed her family of five. With this income, she could get six pounds of beans, half a pound of cheese, half a pound of cream, four pounds of rice, eggs, a chicken, and other basics.
“Before, with $20, I was able to fill a shopping cart. Now I can’t… I spend $40 and it’s not enough. I can’t even fill a shopping basket because everything is so expensive. Beans are $2.50, and cooking oil for 15 days is $2. We just can’t manage. This current crisis is really tough,” says Toñita. She doesn’t know how she will find the money to buy shoes or clothes.
But Toñita has now found a way to provide her family with nourishing food: Inspired by Saving for Change, she has started a garden and is raising chickens for their eggs. Saving for Change is an Oxfam program that encourages women to use the capital generated through their savings groups to participate in projects that help them achieve a sustainable livelihood. One such project seeks to promote women’s production capacity, entrepreneurial, and self-reliance skills by helping them establish vegetable gardens.
With her garden, Toñita has a new means to feed her family and avoid paying the high prices at the market. The cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and mustard greens she is growing are providing her family with the vitamins and proteins they weren’t getting before. And now she is teaching other women in her community how to do the same thing. The best part is she sells her extra produce at below market prices to her neighbors facing similar difficulties.
Ana Elizabeth Barrera works at a market in the city of Santa Tecla. She cooks and sells prepared foods, and therefore intimately knows the issue of rising food prices. Ana Elizabeth has seen the price of staples climb steadily over the past five years, but notes an accelerated rise of 60 to 70 percent in the past year, most notably with oil, rice, beans and sugar.
“Six to eight months ago I would invest $100 for oil, rice and other basics, and today I am spending between $150-160 which buys the same amount. Consequently, I have to raise my prices, which means that sales have gone down,” says Ana Elizabeth. She has lost 40 percent of her clientele and has had to let go one of her two employees.
Iris Madrid finds herself in a vulnerable position after losing her job a few weeks ago. Although her income was modest, it was stable and allowed her to buy basic items for her home and support her three children. Now, without a salary and facing rising food costs, she depends on her mother who sells beauty products via catalog.
“If there is detergent, then there is no soap. Or if we have soap, then we have no detergent. If we have beans, then we won’t be eating cheese. If we have cheese, we won’t be eating beans… It hurts because when you have children and they ask you for something, you can’t give it to them,” explains Iris. There are days when all they eat are the mangos from the tree outside her house.
Saving for Change is a program that is growing every day. Since its launch in 2005, it has grown to more than 488,000 members in five countries. The hope is that it will continue to grow and reach people like Ana Elizabeth and Iris, like it has reached Toñita.
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Unfortunately, that’s just what happened in September and October 2010. Abdoulaye N’Dao, a gregarious retired electrician with grey dread locks says the flooding in 2010 “was the most difficult compared to earlier ones… there was a lot more water.” He says his house had water up to his ankles in some of the rooms; he and his extended family of 25 people were bailing water out of the house and its courtyard for days. “Maybe crocodiles and frogs can live like that,” he says months later sitting in his now drier courtyard, “but not people.”
The heavy rains of 2010 triggered the fifth year in a row of serious flooding in Pikine, and capped off one of the rainiest years for Senegal since 1971. Dakar got a total of 20 inches, more than twice the normal amount of annual rainfall. Oxfam already was working with an organization in Pikine called Eau-Vie-Environnement (Water-Life-Environment, or EVE for short), and deployed $295,000 from Oxfam’s “Saving Lives 24/7 Fund” to help EVE respond.
The needs were urgent in Pikine: Oxfam and EVE estimated that 150,000 people in 3,600 families were badly affected, either completely displaced or living in flooded homes. With help from Oxfam, EVE planned an aggressive response, which included:
A fast survey of the worst-affected areas of Pikine, to identify families in the most need: EVE and Oxfam decided to focus its assistance on 2,812 families (roughly 30,000 people) primarily in seven of Pikine’s 16 districts.
Supporting 116 pumps, to remove water from 643 homes, 7 schools, and 18 mosques: EVE supplied fuel for pumps that moved more than a million cubic meters of water, which is something like 264 million gallons, enough to fill more than 400 Olympic swimming pools. This took 15,000 liters (about 4,000 gallons) of fuel. EVE worked with local authorities to help remove water from 228 roads in Pikine.
Removing waste: household garbage and other waste pose a severe health threat, so EVE supported the removal of 3,000 cubic meters (roughly 105,000 cubic feet) of garbage.
Delivering sand: to build up low-lying areas and shore up buildings at risk of being submerged, EVE delivered 10 truckloads of sand to each of seven districts in the city.
Promoting good hygiene: EVE distributed 2,806 hygiene kits with soap, bleach, clean buckets for storing water, mosquito nets, and water purification tablets. In follow-up visits, EVE estimated that 93.8 percent of the households it visited were using adequate methods to treat water, and that these and other measures likely helped reduce diarrhea cases from 3.12 percent of the households to 1.48 percent.
Direct financial support: With funds from Oxfam, EVE allocated 40, 000 CFA francs (about US$80) to more than 1,500 of the most severely affected households, so they could buy food, medicine, and clothing.
Abdou Diouf, the executive secretary of EVE, says Oxfam did not just provide some assistance during the crisis and then withdraw along with the flood water. “This is the first time since Pikine has experienced these floods, that an [international] organization has intervened during the flooding and has decided to continue intervening after the flooding,” he says during an interview in his office in Pikine in April. Diouf says EVE was able to use a small amount of money left over from a grant from Oxfam to deal with floods in 2009 to prepare for the 2010 rainy season. When the heavy rains hit in 2010, volunteer assessment teams were already in place and trained to take action.
Oxfam also is supporting EVE’s work in 2010 to help local governments to lobby for funding they can use to improve drainage systems, and keep the pumps running in chronically flooded areas of the city.
Diouf also says the cash transfers represented “… a revolution in our intervention this year. People really appreciated this; I had people coming to the office here to specifically thank EVE and Oxfam for the money.”
Each recipient got about 40,000 CFA francs, which is about US$85. It’s unusual for an aid organization to provide money instead of food, clothing, water, and other assistance. But it allows those affected by the flood to spend the money on what they need the most, rather than what an aid organization decides is best for them.
When Assiatou Niang got her cash, she immediately thought about food. “We had no food, so I bought a bag of rice,” she says. With 30 people living in the household, including most of her nine children as well as those of her injured sister, food was a priority. “I also needed cement to repair the house, and I needed money for daily expenses around the household.” Niang is 58, and recently widowed. The cash helped her feed her family and cover other expenses for about a month over the winter.
Distributing cash is also economically efficient, according to Isaac Massaga, Oxfam’s program officer based in Dakar. “If you distribute rice in a community, you are preventing the local dealers from selling their own stock,” he says. “By helping people access food in the local market, we also help suppliers, and at the same time it helps maintain the market.”
EVE and Oxfam found a credit union that supervised the distribution of the funds to only those with vouchers provided by EVE according to the results of its household surveys. EVE transferred more than US$130,000 to families in Pikine.
]]>Sorn says she spends less time weeding her fields than she used to since she started using a mechanical weeding device she helped create with assistance from Oxfam’s partner in Cambodia, RACHANA, an organization based in the southern Takeo province. When farmers use this new tool, they can accomplish in a few hours what used to take them many days.
Oxfam supported RACHANA in designing and testing the mechanical weeders that help farmers grow more rice. Switching to innovative rice-growing systems and using a mechanical weeder can create more than 100 percent gains in production—a huge improvement for small-scale rice growers like Sorn and her sister.
Sorn is among 100 families in the area growing rice using an array of special methods called the System of Rice Intensification, or SRI. SRI represents an accessible form of innovation for small-scale farmers like Sorn: it boosts yields through different ways of plowing fields and improving soil fertility, and of planting and transplanting rice. SRI helps the plants grow stronger and more resistant to pests and diseases. It doesn't require special seed varieties. And because the plants are healthier, the farmers need less fertilizer and pesticides, which saves them money and preserves the environment.
One of SRI’s techniques involves transplanting single seedlings farther apart, instead of transplanting them in bunches. The distance helps seedlings grow stronger roots. SRI farmers plant their seedlings in rows, so they can weed around the plants more easily. A mechanical weeder helps them speed up the process.
In Sorn’s village of Prey Pa’e, RACHANA found a metalworker named Ben Pen who was willing to work with the local farmers to develop the weeders. With RACHANA’s help, in 2009 he began to adapt designs from India and other countries; he optimized them based on feedback from women farmers. Sorn and about 20 others tested five prototypes. With Pen, they developed one- and two-wheel weeders, which farmers use for different soil and weed conditions. The weeders weigh between 4 and 12 pounds. Each of them has a long handle with which the farmers push narrow wheels with steel spikes, churning the earth and tearing up the weeds.
Most of the farmers responsible for testing the weeders were women. Though men help prepare the soil and assist with the harvest, women do most of the work in the fields. Pen and RACHANA wanted to make sure that the weeder designs are suitable for them. “These weeders are helping women avoid back pain, and neck pain,” Pen says. “They can stand up, and it’s a lot faster.”
Sorn moves down the rows between the rice plants pushing the weeder in front of her like a lawn mower. The tool splashes through a thin layer of water, cutting up clumps of grass and mud.
“There’s quite a difference when you use the weeding tools,” Sorn says. “If you weed by hand you only get the top of the weed, you don’t get the root, and it grows again. When you use the weeding tool, it destroys the root and churns the weed into the soil—it’s better for the soil.”
Sorn farms a little less than two acres. Having the weeder helps Sorn and her sister get their weeding done faster. She says saving this time and labor is particularly important for her now: her husband passed away and her six children are all grown and have left the village to work and study. She’s 55, alone, and needs the help.
RACHANA’s research showed that by combining weeders with SRI, farmers could increase their production to average 5.6 tons per hectare, up from an average of 2.2 tons using traditional techniques. (A hectare is about 2.45 acres.) The organization ordered 900 of the three most popular weeders from Pen; it is selling them to farmers across the country. The tools cost about $20—a significant investment, prompting groups of two or three neighbors to buy the tools together and share them.
The investment is worth the time saved: the women in Prey Pa’e say it takes three people two weeks to weed a hectare, and by the time they finish, the weeds are already growing again. “With the weeder, three people can finish in one morning,” says Pen Rat, who was part of the prototype testing team.
Sorn says she helped test the one-wheel weeder, and suggested that Pen lower the angle of the handle, so women would be pushing at waist level. “I thought women would have more strength to push and pull,” she says.
Simple forms of innovation, like these mechanical weeders, encourage farmers to come together, share their ideas, and play a role in developing technological improvements for their farming. This type of endeavor is just a small part of Oxfam’s work to transform agriculture for the poorest farmers in Cambodia.
Farmers like Sorn Ken confirm this: “Having this weeder is like having another person,” she says.
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