She planted a maize field and hoped to grow a ton, but only got one 50-kg bag. She says the poor result was due to “lack of rain, lack of good equipment for cultivation, and lack of money to pay for labor.”

Her situation is rather typical in the small village of Bandafassy, about 15 kilometers from the town of Kedougou in eastern Senegal, where erratic rain last year hit farmers hard. The resulting high demand for food grown in other parts of the country is pushing up prices, and forcing farmers who were already struggling to feed their families to find creative ways of coping.

Erratic rain prevented any decent harvest

Camara is the one in the family responsible for agriculture, but her husband Nicolas Keita helps prepare fields for planting and the harvest – when he is not away mining for gold to earn cash.

Keita says they planted in early June, but by the end of the month it had stopped raining, and what they were growing dried out in July. They replanted in August, and invested in some fertilizer. The rains were intermittent in September and stopped altogether in the beginning of October. "The rain gap in June and July prevented any decent harvest," he says.

"Things are going to go badly," Camara says she realized after the harvest. "But we will make every effort." She turned to gathering wild fruits in the forest, such as the seed pods of the baobab tree and jujube berries to feed her family.

To earn money, her mother-in-law began making clay pots for storing water; Camara walks 15 kilometers to Kedougou (carrying a 10-pound pot on her head) where she sells the pots for about $5 each. If she can make a sale, she buys food and returns. In a good week, she can sell two or three pots.

Camara reports that after a good harvest she can feed her family for about six months, but this past year the food only lasted about four. She says she is down to her last two bags of rice, one of which she wants to save for seed. “We will always find a way to get by,” she says with a certain resignation. The threat to farmers like Camara is that of another year of diminished harvests: Successive bad years can lead to a downward spiral that even the most resourceful farmer can’t avoid.

Oxfam is designing programs to help farmers like Camara get the resources they need to plant crops this year, so that when the rains come people will have an opportunity to grow what they need for food. Cherif Sow, who works for the Kedougou Association for Action and Development, an Oxfam partner, says the need for support in the area is crucial. “We have to help the communities as quickly as possible to help them survive the lean time, otherwise it will have an impact on their agricultural production.”

Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.

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:

• Yemen: One-third of the population—7.2 million people—suffers from acute hunger. In the capital city, imported wheat flour prices were 117% higher in May of 2011 than the previous year contributing to unrest in the country.
• Tanzania: Despite a strong economic performance, more than half the population lives in extreme poverty and is vulnerable to increasing food prices.
• Mozambique: In 2010, after record harvests, Mozambique was still slated to import almost a quarter of its food. Food prices are volatile because of both domestic production and import dependence.
• Russia: In most of Russia’s regions, the price of the average food basket went up by 20-30 percent between July 2010 and March 2011. Russian food prices remained high even after the Russian government introduced a grain export ban that led to a surge in prices on the international markets.
• Guatemala: Nearly half of children under 5 in Guatemala are chronically undernourished, and the proportion of the population suffering from malnutrition has been rising. In rural areas, up to 70 percent of children are malnourished.

/ENDS

Notes to editors

The map can be found here: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/articles/food-price-spikes

Copy and paste the following code to add the map directly on your website:

"Resuscitating Doha is essential to right the rigged rules of trade, but what's been simmering on the WTO stove will simply not deliver for poor countries, said Oxfam America president Raymond C. Offenheiser. "The financial crisis, which started in developed countries but is taking its worst toll on developing countries, should be the impetus for a change in course."

In a new report released today called "Empty Promises," Oxfam details how the Doha Round has become an exercise in prying open developing country markets rather than an effort to rebalance decades of unfair agricultural and industrial trade rules. In the midst of a global economic crisis, a food crisis, and a climate crisis, nations with the least blame and with the least capacity to cope with the consequent effects must not have to pay even more to enable their economies to develop, according to the report.

Over 50 million people stand to lose their jobs, remittances are collapsing, and growth in sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to fall by 70 percent this year trapping 90 million more people in poverty, because of the crisis. Food prices meanwhile remain high for poor consumers: by the end of 2008 a further 109 million people had been added to the ranks of hungry, topping 1 billion people worldwide. As the world experiences the sharpest drop in trade in 80 years, a "development" trade deal—as originally promised—remains crucial, according to Oxfam.

"Now is the time for WTO members to come back to the negotiating table, recognize that the current crisis provides an opportunity to address urgent development needs, and change the course of negotiations, much as they did nearly eight years ago in Doha," said Offenheiser. "At this time of desperate need for a change of course, the Doha Round has to step up to deliver on its development promise. There is little credit left for another failure."

The welcome political commitment from the G8 could lead to a fresh start to negotiations, but it cannot be business as usual. In the past eight years, developed countries have used the talks to continue to push to open up new export markets. Developing countries have resisted, saying they were promised a deal that would give them space to protect their farmers and new industries, an end to rich country trade-distorting agricultural subsidies, and more access to rich markets for their farmers and industries.

The widespread food price crisis has shown that food and livelihood security cannot depend solely on market forces. Development, rather than liberalization, has to be the central objective of negotiations and trade rules must respond to the needs of the most vulnerable people first and foremost, according to Oxfam. It is the responsibility of WTO member states to analyze the role of trade in the recent global crises so that the Doha negotiations take into account the new global context and contribute to a solution, rather than exacerbate the problem.

"What's on the table is no silver bullet since it continues to favor the richest and biggest farmers and industrialists in the US and Europe and sidelines the needs of the poor," said Offenheiser. "We have seen what can be done when countries find the resolve to avert problems at home, and this resolve must be translated to the multilateral trade agenda so that the much-needed conclusion of the Doha Round can be achieved in a manner that addresses developing country needs first and foremost."

Amankwaa, 48, is a serious, no-nonsense business woman who rarely cracks a smile, but is patiently answering questions about her farm. She is gracious to visitors because she wants them to know she will not willingly sell her six small farms to an American mining company intent on exploiting the gold under the land in her Ghanaian village, Mehame, which means "don't bother me" in the local Twi dialect.

Amankwaa looks around the cocoa pods and all the trees. "This land was given to me by my grandmother; it had old cocoa trees on it and I cut them down and planted new ones," she says. "Now they are growing very well. This is what I depend on for everything, to keep my children in school and all the money we use for food we eat, the house we built, everything is from the cocoa farms."

"This farm is my life," she says finally, "My life is this farm."

The farmers here are industrious. One stood up in an informal meeting back in town to say "If you grow cocoa and don't make money, then you are not working hard." And the farmers in Mehame do make money: Amankwaa earns about $3,200 per year, which is roughly six times the national average income in Ghana. She and her husband have three children. The oldest is finished with school and growing cocoa himself, and the other two are in high school, a boy and a girl. They have a large concrete house with a proper roof, electricity, and clean water from a well.

Given everything they have achieved in Mehame, some of the farmers are skeptical about the proposal to expand the nearby Ahafo mine into their village, swallowing up their cocoa farms and homes. In exchange they would get compensation for their land and be given new homes somewhere else, but this is not an attractive option to Amankwaa and some others. "We don't want to be resettled somewhere, to be sent to another place, to another person's land," Amankwaa says. "We just want to be at peace with our farms and our children."

"People here have courage"

The American company looking to expand its mine into the area near Mehame seems to have the support of the government, and there is little opportunity for the local farmers to express their opposition to the mine expansion.

At first there were just rumors, then the villagers heard chainsaws in the forest, and found crews exploring for minerals without their permission. The company, Newmont Mining of Denver, arrived for formal visits with the chief, along with representatives from the Brong-Ahafo regional government, and a member of parliament. "Later on we heard the company found people and pushed them to say they wanted mining here, and used them to prove the community approved," Amankwaa says. She says this compelled opponents of mining to call on Oxfam America's partner WACAM to teach them how to defend their rights.

Working with WACAM, the farmers attended workshops in communities already affected by mining to learn about the potential social and environmental costs like pollution to the many streams that feed their farms. And they are learning to organize themselves, Amankwaa says. "With their advice, we have been able to unite and advocate for our position."

When a group of farmers convene to discuss their concerns about mining, the talk inevitably turns to ways they can defend their farms. Hannah Owusu-Koranteng of WACAM cautions the group against violence: "Protect your property, but don't sacrifice your life," she tells them. "Not all struggles should be violent. You can struggle by jaw-jaw, [talking], use your wisdom and language to win your struggle."

Abdullah Selifa, a 28-year-old employee of WACAM in Brong-Ahafo, says their first task it to ensure farmers like the ones in Mehame understand their rights in Ghana's constitution.

"We are fortunate to live in a democratic country," he says, and goes on to describe the articles in Ghana's constitution that protect the right to private property.

Nevertheless, the farmers are sure to have concerns about confronting powerful forces. "The people here have courage, but they are concerned about intimidation," Selifa says. "So we try to show them that they do not have to be afraid of struggling for their rights in the constitution—and that the government is there to protect their rights."

The community's latest move is to write their political representatives to ask for help. If they get a negative response, Selifa says they will take legal action to protect their farms.

While the Farm Bill does little to help poor farmers in the US, it actually harms rural communities around the world. After receiving massive subsidies, US cotton farms produce more than they otherwise would, and sell their surplus at less than the cost of production. These subsidies hurt African cotton farmers by reducing the world price of cotton and shrinking their share of the market. This situation is not only unfair; it violates international rules set by the World Trade Organization.

The stories that follow testify to the fact that aid can be used effectively—in Africa and beyond. By investing directly in people, by helping them gain access to education, credit, and natural resources, by challenging the policies that perpetuate poverty, Oxfam puts the systems in place that can end poverty. Without this work—and your support—people remain hungry, poor, and lacking meaningful ways to change their lives.

Together, we have the chance to make that change.

When's the last time a small-farm family called it quits and had to sell their land for development? Probably yesterday or the day before.

There's no coincidence here. The loss of truly fresh fruits and vegetables, grown for their taste, and the loss of farmland and small-scale farmers are two faces of the same coin. In this issue of EXCHANGE, we meet Michael Rozyne, founder and managing director of Oxfam partner Red Tomato.

Also in this issue, ethnic discrimination in Guatemala—and the Mayan defense. Plus, how community radio is engaging Senegal's youth, and the humanitarian imperative of land mine clearance in war-torn Afghanistan.

Also in this issue, working together to save the family farm, the power of reading empowers women in The Gambia, and updates on Oxfam's work in Bolivia and in eastern and southern Africa.