Africa's Sahel region is experiencing a major food crisis that could turn into a full blown famine.

This crisis did not happen overnight. The Sahel Working Group report (Escaping the Hunger Cycle; Pathways to Resilience in the Sahel), led by Groundswell’s Peter Gubbels, found that food insecurity in the Sahel is part of a persistent and predictable reservoir of chronic acute food insecurity affecting a predictable and growing portion of the region’s population.

Unfortunately, the international community’s responses to the last two food crises in the region – in 2005 and again in 2010 – did not address these persistent problems nor did they begin in time, even with the food aid they eventually gave to address the short-term effects of the crises. As a result, millions of households resorted to extreme coping mechanisms, selling off their assets (including productive ones) to buy food to survive for a few months. This severely compromised their ability to farm, produce food, and earn a living over the long term. The lack of systematic change in the way families farmed and used their land also ensured that another crisis would develop when there was a new shock or accumulation of stresses as there is now, i.e., high food prices, drought, etc.

Escaping the Hunger Cycle: Pathways to Resilience in the Sahel by Peter Gubbels.

Groundswell and a number of other like-minded organizations are pursuing and strongly advocating a new type of response that takes into account the chronic, structural vulnerability of the Sahel. Instead of just providing food aid, the response from international organizations must focus on: promoting agro-ecological methods of farming, improving soil fertility, establishing water retention and tree cover better adapted to the changing climate, supporting measures to reduce the risk of predictable disasters, addressing the root causes of malnutrition, and providing long term social protection to the most vulnerable households.

The efforts we are presently undertaking with Oxfam to improve soil fertility, seed quality and water management to sustainably improve production and livelihoods are precisely the sorts of interventions needed to avert another famine and make Sahelian farmers more food secure and generally more resilient to shocks of all types. Through SfC Plus Ag, 26,000 women living 200 rural villages in Mali are learning to sustainably improve their agricultural production by introducing simple technologies to improve soil fertility (using nitrogen fixing trees and cover crops), seed quality (short cycle seeds), and water management.

A.  Partenariat pour le Développement Local (PDL) supports small farmer families to improve agriculture and food production and promote sustainable development by starting where they are – by meeting and engaging with farmers on their own fields and farms. We work with them to assess and analyze the constraints they are facing. These are mostly related to issues like land overuse leading to decreasing soil fertility, erosion of topsoil, poor seed quality and limited access to seeds at planting times, challenges to pay day laborers to help with soil preparation due to the lack of access to loans at fair prices, tools that are expensive and of poor quality, post harvest losses due to insects and fungus, the very low costs of the agriculture production at harvest time, and in turn the high price of the same grains, beans and seeds at planting time, and poor infrastructure to bring agricultural products to markets – things like roads, transportation, and local plants to process agricultural products to add value.  After analyzing these constraints with local peasant organizations, PDL works step by step with them to take action to overcome some of these constraints.  We develop practical alternatives and build local strength and capacity to address the challenges.  

Cantave Jean-Baptiste talking with group of farmers in Saint Michel, Haiti.

Some of the keys to doing this are helping to organize the farmers around common interests they identify, or strengthen existing farmers’ organizations to improve their work.  We support them to develop solutions at a small scale, and then build on these good examples to move forward.  We help them link to other peasant organizations to work together and advocate for more access to basic productive services and infrastructure.  At this stage, the networks of peasant organizations advocate to influence decision makers in supporting autonomous, sustainable and decentralized development. We believe grassroots and civil society organizations in Haiti should take the lead in this movement, with the support of other key international organizations.

Q.  We have seen the numbers that tell how many people and communities PDL and Groundswell supported over the last two years.  But how would you describe the key successes since the earthquake?  

A.  There are a number of successes we can talk about.  
 

Farmer leader in Maissade, Haiti showing soil conservation work undertaken by IDPs with earthquake donations.

First, there was the speedy support we were able to provide to the internally displaced people after the earthquake. While most of the national and international organizations concentrated their efforts on Port-au-Prince, PDL went to the countryside to meet the displaced victims who had fled there and provided support both to them and the rural families hosting them.  The poor farming families offered hospitality – sharing their living space, their clothes, and even providing as food the seed grains they had stored for the coming planting season. PDL’s support consisted in working with local peasant organizations to create temporary jobs to improve productive infrastructure – like rebuilding roads and soil conservation on farms – replenishing the seed stocks of the farmers for the planting season, providing small loans for both displaced people and host families, and developing community-run stores so people could obtain the basic goods they need.  Most of those activities are still running and are contributing to rebuilding the rural economies and self-resilience.

After the outbreak of cholera, PDL was the first organization to bring assistance to remote areas in the Artibonite that were affected.  The hospitals and other health centers were overwhelmed and could not respond to rural communities.  PDL staff mobilized to bring antibiotics, oral rehydration fluids and chlorine (to purify water) to save lives.  Later, PDL sent medicines, oral and intravenous rehydration fluids, and chlorine to about 20 communities and health centers in the Artibonite, North and North East departments.  As cholera has become an epidemic, we have continued education and prevention programs.  We are supporting peasant organizations in building water filters and latrines to prevent the spread of cholera.

Learning from our previous experiences, PDL has been moving pretty quickly in promoting and strengthen new local peasant organizations in six new communal sections. The number of gwoupman (solidarity groups of 8-15 people) formed has largely passed our initial plans.  Village level coordinating committees among the gwoupman in the six program areas have been formed, and they are assuming responsibilities for managing local activities.  The inter-village peasant associations in these areas will be inaugurated late 2012 or early 2013.

These new community organizations played an important role in mobilizing people to limit the consequences of the cholera outbreak. The local leaders and the community health promoters played an invaluable role.  Their actions increased local people’s respect for the peasant groups, since they organized and served the entire population without discrimination as to whether people were members of the peasant groups or not.  They worked to improve life for everyone in the communities.  And now the changes in people’s behavior are obvious to see: more people are building and using latrines, and more and more families are treating drinking water and making hand washing a part of their daily practice.  These areas have a lower incidence of cholera.

Q.  What needs to happen next to continue the progress in these rural communities?

Cantave with other PDL staff at their Port-au-Prince office in January 2012.

A.  We will continue to diversify our support for the community organizations in response to their evolving needs and priorities.  We are working to build the social and economic infrastructure, and the communities’ confidence in their own abilities, in order to promote the social changes Haiti needs.  A next step includes strengthening a network of the local peasant organizations to become a powerful actor.  

And we must invest in new ways and create new capacities so that peasant organizations are able to consistently and sustainably generate greater prosperity.  PDL supported nine local peasant organizations in the post- earthquake program, and we also worked with them to develop longer term economic development plans to move their economies and communities to the next level.  We are still seeking funding and hoping to support them with the implementation of these plans.

Q.  What are your hopes and dreams for the next few years in Haiti? What is possible?

A.  We are not waiting for miracles from this new government. We hope at least that they will not make any decisions that worsen the current situation.  In the government’s plans, agriculture is one of the key sectors that should benefit, so that is positive.  They are talking about facilitating farmers’ access to micro-loans, which is very important. They are also talking about improving the tourism industry, and this would imply building roads. So indirectly, the farmers could benefit if they can more easily transport their products to local markets.  We will continue to work with the local peasant organizations to develop the capacities they need to become more resilient and generate a better life for themselves and contribute to building Haiti’s future.

Severe food crises in the Sahel used to occur about every 10 years, but recently, for a variety of reasons including the impact of climate change, they are becoming much more frequent.  Major food crises occurred in 2005, 2008 (due to high global food prices), and again in 2010. There is deep concern that for the most vulnerable households, who are only just starting to recover from 2010, this latest crisis will result in true humanitarian disaster. 

Peter Gubbels and Fatou Batta, Groundswell Co-Coordinators for West Africa, visiting restored farm in Burkina Faso.

Countries in the Sahel suffered very low harvests this year, leading UN agencies and analysts to predict a 2.5 million ton cereal deficit in the region. Some of this deficit can be met by market flows from surplus areas, however, food prices in some places have increased by more than 80% over the five-year average, and have continued to rise rather than fall after this year’s harvest. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the price for millet, a basic staple crop for a majority of farm families, is 77% higher than the five-year average in the Malian capital Bamako; 93% higher in the northern city of Gao, and 85% higher in the central region of Ségou.

Even if prices were to stabilize, there would still be a major problem, as they are already unsustainably high for many poor rural households, who buy up to 60% of their food from the market. High food prices and poor terms of trade for the most vulnerable households put food out of their reach.

Response Must Address Roots Causes of Food Security and Malnutrition

Escaping the Hunger Cycle: Pathways to Resilience in the Sahel by Peter Gubbels

As recently stressed in the Sahel Working Group report (written by Groundswell International) entitled Escaping the Hunger Cycle; Pathways to Resilience in the Sahel, food insecurity in the Sahel this year is part of a persistent and predictable reservoir of chronic acute food insecurity affecting a predictable and growing portion of the region’s population. The responses of the aid community in 2005 and again in 2010 (while improved) failed to begin in time, causing millions of households to resort to extreme coping mechanisms. They sold off their assets, including productive ones, to buy food to survive for a few months, which compromised their ability to farm, produce food, and earn a living over the long term.

When aid finally did arrive, it was too little and too late. Aid appeals for West Africa are almost always under-funded; 37% of the 2011 request had come in by mid December, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Not only has the aid been insufficient and late, but it has focused almost exclusively on food aid, which does not address the underlying, long-term problems.

Groundswell and a number of aid agencies and analysts, strongly advocate a new type of response that takes into account the chronic, structural vulnerability of the Sahel. Instead of just providing food aid, the response from international organizations must focus on: promoting agro-ecological methods of farming, improving soil fertility, establishing water retention and tree cover better adapted to the changing climate, supporting measures to reduce the risk of predictable disasters, addressing the root causes of malnutrition, and providing long term social protection to the most vulnerable households.

The time to act is now. The lessons of 2005, 2008 and 2010 are clear. The challenge is to put them into practice in time to avert famine.

As one of the most fertile and productive places in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti was once called “the pearl of the Antilles” by the French – who generated wealth by importing African slaves to work plantation agriculture.  Yet when those slaves rebelled to create an independent republic in 1804, France, and eventually the United States and Haitian governments themselves perpetrated a 200-year campaign of exploitation and marginalization of rural family farmers and communities until there were virtually no resources left – except of course the incredibly resilient Haitian peasant farmers.  

The January 12, 2010 earthquake again focused the world’s attention on Haiti – including the need to re-think sustainable pathways to development.  A few months after the earthquake, former US President Bill Clinton acknowledged the error of the West’s agricultural policies toward Haiti:  

“Since 1981, the United States has followed a policy, until the last year or so when we started rethinking it, that we rich countries that produce a lot of food should sell it to poor countries and relieve them of the burden of producing their own food, so, thank goodness, they can leap directly into the industrial era. It has not worked. It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake … And it’s [the old agricultural policy] failed everywhere it’s been tried. And you just can’t take the food chain out of production. And it also undermines a lot of the culture, the fabric of life, the sense of self-determination.”

Haitian farmers selecting seed at a community-run seed bank PDL helped to start.

As Laurent Dubois and Deborah Jenson wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times on January 8th, “to lay the foundation for a better future … Haiti should look to the past, and the system of small farms and the decentralized economy that once provided Haitians with dignity, autonomy and wealth.” PDL and Groundswell have long focused on revitalizing family farming and rural communities as the solution in Haiti.  But the challenge is: how do you effectively support that?  

“PDL supports small farmer families to improve agriculture and food production and promote sustainable development by starting where they are – meeting and engaging with them on their own fields and farms,” says Jean-Baptiste.  “We work with them to assess and analyze the constraints they are facing … Then, step by step, PDL and the local peasant organizations take action to overcome some of these constraints, building local strength and capacity.… We help to organize the farmers around common interests they identify, or strengthen existing farmers organizations to improve their work…. We help them link to other peasant organizations to work together and advocate for more access to basic productive services and infrastructure.”   

Below are some highlights of what we have accomplished in rural Haiti since the earthquake:

• 9 peasant organizations, representing over 150,000 people, have been strengthened to lead local development processes and support displaced people from urban areas.
• This includes training 2,423 village leaders and supporting communities to organize 108 democratically-elected village committees to manage community-led programs to improve agriculture, health and rural economies.
• 2,532 farmers have been engaged in practical learning of critical soil and water conservation practices, as well as other techniques to improve their agricultural production.
• 6 community-run seed banks have been established, allowing 2,054 farmers to gain access to high quality local seed. Through seed selection and managing rotating seed loans, the quality and volume of seed bank stocks are growing under community-management.
• 214,785 tree seedlings have been produced in community-run tree nurseries, and 169,241 tree seedlings have been planted by farmers.  Trees diversify production, provide for other family needs, and conserve soil.
• 6 community-run savings and credit coops have been formed. 1,093 farm families have received microloans totaling $55,261. Local savings are growing.

Miscaden Ronel, washes her hands at a simple hand washing station set up at her home. The design was introduced by PDL in her community.

In response to the cholera outbreak that came on the heels of the earthquake in October 2010, Cantave says that “PDL was the first organization to bring assistance to remote areas in the Artibonite Department affected by the cholera outbreak.  The hospitals and other health centers were overwhelmed and could not respond to rural communities.  PDL staff mobilized to bring antibiotics, oral re-hydration fluids and chlorine (to purify water) to save lives.”  To prevent the spread of cholera since then, PDL and Groundswell have supported local peasant organizations to:

• Build 542 new large family water filters and 868 latrines.
• Train 3,096 families in water treatment measures and 5,202 in sanitation measures (including hand washing, latrine use, etc.) to avoid cholera and other waterborne diseases.
• Form 54 village health committees to coordinate the activities, including trainings and workshops on cholera prevention as well HIV/STD prevention, which were attended by thousands of adolescents and adults.

“We will continue to diversify our support for the community organizations in response to their evolving needs and priorities,” says Cantave.  “We are working to build the social and economic infrastructure, and the communities’ confidence in their own abilities, in order to promote social changes Haiti needs.”

PDL’s and Groundswell’s work in Haiti is made possible thanks to the generous support of Lutheran World Relief, the Vista Hermosa Foundation, American Jewish World Service, the Haiti Fund of the Boston Foundation, and hundreds of individual donors.

Like Cilianna Mars in La Victoire, Haiti, who leads work in her community to improve health through disease prevention and the production of natural medicines, we are happy with our progress and greatly appreciate your support. We have incredible momentum going into 2012.

Last week we received a $30,000 grant from the Mary A. Tidlund Foundation to support our work in Ecuador and Burkina Faso. These monies will be used in 2012 to strengthen local seed systems, promote water harvesting and management for climate adaptation, strengthen local food systems through linking rural producers and urban consumers, and improve community and reproductive health in both countries.

Also, in the past two weeks our supporters helped us to win two matching grants: $25,000 from the Swift Foundation and $50,000 from Paul and Ann Milburn. Funds from the Swift Foundation will support Groundswell’s work around the globe, while the support from Mr. and Mrs. Milburn is targeting our work in West Africa.

While these successes are invaluable, there is so much more we can do if we have the resources we need. So, please dig deep to donate whatever you can this holiday season, or peruse our new gift catalog and give a gift that changes lives.

No matter how you choose to support us, please know that it will be put to good use!

Happy holidays,

Steve Brescia
International Director

The brutal reality is that a pervasive, mostly silent structural food crisis exists in the Sahel. Because so many households are already so vulnerable, sudden outside factors such as drought, or a rapid rise in global food prices, cause this chronic situation to peak very quickly into an acute phase. It is often only the acute levels of crisis that attract media attention. The most striking indicator of this chronic food crisis is the appallingly high level of Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM). In the Sahel, in good years and bad, the average level of GAM hovers very close to 15%. This is the threshold level set by World Health Organisation for emergency action. Comprehensive surveys taken between 2003 and 2007 indicated that 14% (1,300,000) of the 10 million children under the age of 5 in the Sahel are in an acutely malnourished state. Of these 1.3 million malnourished children, 300,000 suffered from Severe Actute Malnutrition (SAM). Tragically, while considered an emergency by world standards, this chronic level of child malnutrition has not galvanised an appropriate national and international response.

Escaping the Hunger Cycle: Pathways to Resilience in the Sahel by Peter Gubbels

Evidence from Household Economy Assessments show that income poverty is a major contributing factor in nutrition insecurity. The poorest households, which constitute up to a third of the population in vulnerable rural areas, purchase roughly 60% of their food from markets. Current growth oriented development policies are leaving many of these most vulnerable households behind. Even if food is abundant in local markets, people lack the purchasing power to buy it, and they typically cannot participate in, nor do they benefit from, large-scale export oriented, capital intensive agricultural programs requiring high levels of external inputs, such as fertilizer, pesticides, hybrid seeds, and irrigation.

In light of this, there can be no complacency, no sense of normalcy, no lessening of the sense of urgency, once the rains have returned and the acute dimension of the food crisis subsides. A comprehensive approach to reducing malnutrition is one of the key “pathways to resiliency” in the Sahel. Aside from nutrition education and improved access to health services, water and sanitation, this requires reducing poverty by promoting agro-ecological (low external input) approaches to farming in higher risk, environmental fragile zones where most of the rural poor live. More importantly, for those unable to benefit even from agro-ecological techniques, it requires complementary support actions targeted on the poorest households to enable them get out of the debt trap, build their assets, reduce their risk to shocks, and increase their income from non-farm and off-farm sources.

A major step in overcoming the root causes of vulnerability in the Sahel, and starting down the path to resiliency, is for the regional inter-governmental agencies (CILSS), Sahelian governments, donors, the UN agencies and international agencies to unequivocally acknowledge that a chronic food and nutrition crisis exists, and that vigorous steps are required to prevent it from getting worse, even when the rains are good, and economic growth measured by GNP is positive.

Please take a few minutes to watch an interview with Jacques:

• 397 farmers, including 159 women, from 19 villages participated in awareness raising sessions on assisted natural regeneration (ANR).
• 73 farmers applied ANR techniques on their farms.
• 257 women participated in training on agroecological techniques for vegetable production – for instance, the use of organic manure to improve soil fertility and pest control with natural products, such as the extract of Neem tree leaves. All of these women are now gardening using these techniques.
• 4 community gardening sites have been established and now have access to water for vegetable production; 2 new wells were dug and another 2 were rehabilitated.
• 50 women from 9 villages participated in a training session on conservation techniques and drying vegetables. This training complemented the training the women received on vegetable production.
• 50 women from 5 villages participated in a 3-day training on the processing of agricultural products and the collection and transformation of non-wood forest products (PFLN). The training that was scheduled for one day lasted three days to allow the 50 beneficiaries to acquire the necessary skills and to ensure that they, as trainers, could replicate this training for the benefit of more than 100 women engaged in the processing of non-wood forest products in 10 other villages.
• 150 people, including 75 women, participated in a training session on traditional animal fattening practices.  The objective was to improve practices utilized by these women and to equip them with the necessary knowledge on improved techniques for animal fattening, e.g., feeding, watering, and animal care, to improve the quality of their businesses.
• More than 200 people from 3 villages attended information and training sessions against the use of genetically modified seeds (GMOs) and pesticides to raise farmers’ awareness about biotechnologies and the risks associated with their use in crop production and animal fattening.
• 26 farmers, including 19 women, representing 9 communities participated in an exchange visit to other communities to learn from the experiences of other women’s groups and farmers.  This generated great enthusiasm among the women’s group participants, who returned and initiated activities, such as vegetable gardening and beginning to promote FMNR. Participants in the exchange visit have been training and supporting other community members who were unable to participate in the visit.

We look forward to equally impressive results in 2012. To make this possible, please consider making a donation this holiday season. Any contribution you make will be doubled thanks to a generous $50,000 matching grant from Paul and Ann Milburn. All of this money will support our work in West Africa. All you need to do is check the “Match my gift!” box on our donation page or write “match my donation” in the comments section of your check.

Ekorural works with thousands of farmers in the northern and central Ecuadorian highlands to: strengthen market linkages between them and urban food buyers; improve local seed production; diversify farms; support farmer innovation to improve water harvesting, management and irrigation to increase production in the face of climate change; and improve community and reproductive health through education and training.

Ekorural’s work with the “Community Food Baskets” (Canastas Comunitarias in Spanish) movement is particularly inspiring this time of year.

According to the latest census, Ecuadorian consumers spend more than $5 billion a year on food.  That is ten times the amount of international development cooperation invested in the country. Via the Canastas Comunitarias movement, this market could transform much of Ecuador’s food system into a positive force that dramatically improves the health of millions of marginalized people as well as much of the country’s ailing landscape. Canastas Comunitarias is a national network of urban, lower income families who have crafted an alternative market that saves them money while providing access to quality foods and paying small-scale farmers a fair price. Farmers earn more, customers pay less, and solidarity is strengthened.

Finally, we are happy to report that we have received $24,200 in donations towards a $25,000 matching grant from the Swift Foundation. Please help us reach our goal today. Your investment in supporting rural communities will be doubled.

In the Sahel, the poorest rural households now purchase roughly 60% of their food from the market. Household economy studies, for example in Maradi, Niger, show that the poorest 30% of households produce only about 17% of their basic food needs. They must sell some of this food to repay debts and meet other obligations. So even if improved agro-ecological farming methods enabled them to double or triple their food production for their own consumption, they would still have to purchase at least 40% of their food from the market, from labour earnings. This leaves poor rural households highly exposed to volatile food prices. Even in good years, they need to purchase grain when prices rise in the lean season, but increasingly cannot afford to buy sufficient food. What we have seen in Niger is a startling correlation between increased millet prices and number of admissions of children with acute malnutrition. High food prices clearly reduce poor people’s access to food, contributing to malnutrition.

Peter Gubbels, Groundswell Co-Coordinator for West Africa, visiting restored farm in Burkina Faso.

In the Sahel, increased food reserves and buffer stocks at the regional, national and local levels can be a valuable tool for improving access to food and for stabilising food prices. Purchasing locally produced foodstuffs when prices are low to reduce supply and selling when prices are high, can keep prices in check, protect farmers’ incomes and mitigate the effect of steep price rises. They can also counter concentrated market power over grain sales and distribution, if complemented by improvements in the market information system, and by decentralised national support for village cereal banks. But because this type of price stabilisation storage involves price regulation, it is politically less acceptable to many donors supporting liberalisation.

Several international conferences, however, have started to consider ways to overcome the many political, regulatory and financial challenges. The reason is compelling evidence that as long as no mechanism for market regulation and control of food price volatility is in place, the current national systems in the Sahel for mitigating chronic food and nutrition insecurity will remain undersized and ineffective. The poorest households will sink ever deeper into debt and poverty, and become more vulnerable to the slightest shocks. There has been a shift. The question now is no longer whether to support food reserves as a means to control food prices, but how.

Peter Gubbels is Groundswell’s Co-Coordinator for West Africa. He has lived in West Africa for over 21 years and recently completed a major study for the Sahel Working Group “Escaping the Hunger Cycle in the Sahel: Pathways to Resilience”.