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Cantave Jean-Baptiste at United Nations

H.E. Csaba Kőrösi, President of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, has stated it is critical for the UN to engage with civil society organizations, youth representatives, and academia to define transformative solutions for our global challenges. The April 2023 meeting of the United Nations Civil Society Townhall focused on the need for accelerated progress toward the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. 

Cantave Jean-Baptiste at United Nations

The moderated event consisted of an opening statement by the President of the General Assembly followed by three short keynote statements from civil society representatives and an interactive discussion. Cantave Jean-Baptiste, Director of Partenariat pour le Développement Local (PDL), Groundswell’s partner organization in Haiti, had the honor of delivering one of the civil society statements, focused on agroecology as a strategy to meet the SDGs in Least Develop Countries, on behalf of co-signatories: IATP, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), Groundswell International, UBINIG, Food Information Action Network (FIAN), ROPPA, SID, SEARICE, PDL, RAPDA-Togo and Cultivate!  

Watch: Cantave Jean-Baptiste at United Nations

Like many Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Haiti is facing a profound political and economic crisis with as many as 90% of rural people living below the poverty line and over 30% of the population living in extreme poverty (incomes of less than US $2.15/day or US $785/year). In 2022, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) ranked Haiti in the 10 worst hunger crises in the world, with 4.3 million in need of immediate food assistance.  

Over 4.8 million of Haiti’s 11.45 million population live in rural areas, and agriculture and fisheries employ half the labor force but account for less than 20 percent of GDP. The country continues to be impacted by a historical model of extractive economic and agricultural development, political and institutional instability, increasing gang violence, extreme levels of insecurity, and high vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters. 

Functional governance that serves the interests of Haiti’s people is largely nonexistent. One of the necessities to overcome this crisis is transitioning from the extractive environmental and economic model that has long plagued the country to one that is regenerative and good for Haitians and their environment. As the United Nations continues and accelerates its focus on achieving SDGs by 2030, LDCs must be taken into the forefront of sustainable solutions. 

As background for Cantave’s statement to the United Nations was backed up by our recently published brief on the results agroecology has produced for the people of Haiti and how that can be a model for the future. Cantave also shared his thoughts, along with Executive Director Steve Brescia, in Mongabay in March.

“Through a regenerative model of agricultural and rural development, Haiti could become ‘a positive example of how some of the most marginalized smallholder farmers in the world can replace the longstanding model of extractive agriculture with one that continuously regenerates their land, food production, rural economies, and dignity.’”

We stand with AFSA’s Statement on AfDB’s Dakar 2 Food Summit

We stand with AFSA's Statement on AfDB’s Dakar 2 Food Summit

What are the solutions to “feed Africa?” Please read this important statement from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA). 

Groundswell International, through our West Africa network, is an active member of AFSA, the largest civil society network on the continent. 

Diversity, not false solutions, is key to achieving food sovereignty and resilience in Africa

As 34 heads of state and 70 ministers return home after three days of ‘food and agriculture delivery compact’ negotiations in Dakar, we reflect on the outcome of the Dakar 2 Summit “Feed Africa: Food Sovereignty and Resilience.”

We endorse wholeheartedly the commitment to free Africa from hunger and the shared resolve for Africa to feed itself with dignity and pride.

We celebrate the increased investment and the renewed commitment of governments to allocate 10% of public expenditure to agriculture.

We applaud the resolve to escape from the shame of dependency on food imports and handouts

We share the recognition of the need and benefits of engaging youth in agriculture and the appreciation of the fundamental role of women in food production.

We acknowledge the vibrant catalytic role of the African Development Bank in mobilizing such widespread African government support and enthusiasm 

However, we have deep concerns:

Any significant increase of African land under agriculture will undermine human rights. Wherever large-scale land acquisitions occur, we see failure to gain community consent, failure to compensate, forced evictions of indigenous people, women’s loss of access to productive land, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and land degradation.

The intense focus on two cereals – wheat & maize – is a rejection of Africa’s vast catalog of nutritious indigenous crops and local varieties. Resilience comes from diversity – in crops, food sources, soil amendments, and supply chains.

The failure of government leaders to see beyond the colonial narrative that African agriculture can only be modernized by adopting the practices of the Global North. Africa has its own resources and know-how to produce healthy food using effective, low-cost, chemical-free inputs, regenerating the soil sustainably.

Therefore:

We reject the continued reliance on colonial thinking – to raise production of staple crops using imported farm inputs, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and hybrid and GMO seeds. Food sovereignty is freedom from external control. A country dependent on imported fertilizer has lost its sovereignty as much as a country that depends on food imports or donations.

 We reject the tendency to entrust African agriculture and food to multinationals while ignoring the continent’s positive attributes (number of farmers, youth and arable lands). Africa should not copy the mistakes of others, but rather bring a new way of doing things.

We denounce the reliance on a top-down, public-private partnership approach to agricultural development. Where were the voices of African farmers and citizens at this food summit?

“This summit propagates the idea that African farmers don’t produce enough food because they don’t use enough chemical fertilizers,” said AFSA General Coordinator Million Belay. “The implication is that if we pump our farms with agrochemicals, we will grow more food. Even though this might serve as a short term strategy, in the end it means polluting the soil, making farmers dependent on external inputs, endangering the health of farmers and consumers, robbing people of their right to healthy, culturally appropriate and nutritious food, and increasing vulnerability to climate change.”

Africa faces the triple burden of malnutrition – hunger, micronutrient deficiency, and obesity/non-communicable diseases. Zambia showed us the failure of hybrid monocrops, which produced back-to-back maize surpluses yet became the most undernourished country in Africa, with 40% of young children stunted. In South Africa, the continent’s most industrialized country, GMO maize is the staple food, and fast food is the urban norm. Now, half of all adults are overweight (23%) or obese (27%), and NCDs like diabetes cause life-altering illnesses, disabilities, and premature death.

The authentic African solution is a commitment to agroecology and food sovereignty – the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods and the right to define one’s own food and agriculture systems.

Kenyan farmer leader Ferdinand Wafula was emphatic in his plea, “We urge policymakers, governments, and donors to provide more funding to agroecology, which offers clear solutions to nutrition challenges, the climate crisis and food insecurity.”

AFSA calls on African governments and donors to redirect funding away from failed ‘green revolution’ approaches towards proven agroecological alternatives. Uniting generations of indigenous knowledge, farmer-driven and science-based innovations, and the ecosystem’s natural processes, agroecological food systems can adapt to and help solve the climate crisis. Farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples and local communities use agroecology to steward their land sustainably, produce nourishing food that celebrates cultural heritage, and strengthen local markets and economies. This way, together, we can feed Africa.

AFSA’s Statement on AfDB’s Dakar 2 Food Summit

New Evidence of Impact: Agroecology as a Poverty Solution in Haiti

Agroecology as a Poverty Solution in Haiti
Rucial Colas, a member of a local peasant association, holds a squash while standing in his agroecological farm plot.  For productivity, food security, and climate resilience, Colas has diversified his plot with sweet potatoes, beans, okra, beets, cabbage, papayas, coconuts, squash, manioc, plantains, sugar cane, yams, coffee, tomatoes, carrots, onions, oranges, and limes.  (Photo by Ben Depp)

Since 2009, Groundswell International has been collaborating with Partenariat pour le Développement Local (PDL) in Haiti to strengthen farmers’ associations in the north of Haiti’s Central Plateau basin to regenerate their farmland and improve their lives. PDL has strengthened 14 peasant organizations, with over 9,900 farmers adapting agroecological farming strategies and spreading them farmer-to-farmer. These organizations also manage community savings & credit coops, seed banks, grain reserves, and cooperative enterprises for value-added food processing and local marketing. 

“We are strengthening the capacity and agency of community and peasant organizations because this creates the space for decentralized, agroecological technical innovation,” says Cantave Jean-Baptiste, Director of PDL. “Individual farmers cannot do it alone, but much can be learned through farmer-to-farmer training. We continue to face political and economic crises on a daily basis, but the country will need sound alternatives like these in order to wake up from the ashes.” 

To evaluate the impact of this work, in 2021 we collaborated with Altus Impact, based in Switzerland, and the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative, based in Bonn, Germany, on an assessment grounded in environmental economics. Evaluators carried out surveys of 330 households, sampled from three communal sections in northern Haiti, comparing the ‘farm budgets’ of agroecological versus conventional farmers (the value of all production, less all costs of all inputs and labor). They also analyzed satellite data to validate land productivity of the surveyed farms.  

Findings – Agroecological Farming in Haiti: A Poverty Crisis Solution

The results are summarized in the Policy Brief – Agroecological Farming in Haiti: A Poverty Crisis Solution. Key findings include:

  • The adoption of agroecological farming leads to impressive increases in productivity and a doubling of per-hectare profitability in the program area. 
  • Controlling for inputs and labor, typical agroecological farmers have gross, annual crop incomes that are US $437 higher per hectare than average conventional farmers.  
  • Satellite data confirmed higher land productivity, vegetative cover, and climate resilience for agroecological plots, even when receiving less rainfall. 
  • Additionally, these agroecological practices can increase water retention and carbon sequestration in the soil, reduce topsoil losses and mudslides, and increase food security.  

Background on the Poverty in Haiti

These are significant impacts in a country where as many as 90% of rural people live below the poverty line, and over 30% of the population lives in extreme poverty (incomes of less than US $2.15/day or US $785/year ). In 2022, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) ranked Haiti in the 10 worst hunger crises in the world, with 4.3 million in need of immediate food assistance.  

Over 4.8 million of Haiti’s population of 11.45 million live in rural areas, and agriculture and fisheries provide employment to half the labor force but account for less than 20 percent of GDP. Due to neglect and ineffective support to farmers over decades and international trade policies that have undermined local food production, Haiti must import a growing and significant portion of the agricultural products it consumes. The country continues to be impacted by a historical model of extractive economic and agricultural development, political and institutional instability, increasing gang violence, extreme levels of insecurity, and high vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters. 

Agroecological Solutions for the Poverty in Haiti

According to the study, “scaling-up of agroecological model farming would result in a significant economic infusion into rural communities, improvements in livelihoods and enhanced climate resilience. …. Farmer-centered and decentralized agricultural innovation, extension and development needs to be supported.”

Specifically, if agroecological farmers were able to extend these practices to the remaining ⅔ of their land, the study projects they would earn an additional annual net income of US $553, totaling US $990 per year. Extending it to the rest of Haiti’s approximately 1 million smallholder farmers would generate ground-up economic growth based on the agency of Haiti’s rural communities and the regeneration of their land. To make this a reality, further action is needed and outlined in this study, as well as by other organizations, as a solution based on “decentralized agricultural innovation, extension and development, and the regeneration of degraded land and rural livelihoods.” 

Read the entire policy brief here.

Groundswell International’s 2022 Year in Review

As another year comes to an end, we’re taking the opportunity to reflect on the progress we’ve made this year. 2022 was a big year for Groundswell International, our partner organizations, and our program communities, as we saw continued successes and instances of resiliency throughout the communities we serve. The year also saw our message of how agroecology is central to building healthy farming and food systems from the ground up spread further than ever before.

Take a moment to reflect with us on some of our favorite projects, publications, and events in 2022.

Youth Storytellers

This year we shared a project that was several years in the making: the Youth Storytellers program. Piloted in 2021, we joined our network partners Association Nourrir Sans Détruire (ANSD) and Vecinos Honduras, to identify interested young people in Honduras and Burkina Faso and provided these young changemakers with basic communications training and equipment to produce brief videos focused on their communities. The Youth Storytellers have documented the lives of smallholder farmers in Groundswell International program communities, including the strategies and techniques critical to their success and the universal elements shared with other farmers around the world, while also emphasizing the improved resilience achieved by these farmers through their use of agroecology. 

The Youth Storytellers shared their stories with their communities via social media to inspire their neighbors into action, but in 2022 we took the opportunity to finalize and translate 15 of the videos they filmed and shared them with you over the course of the year. This program has been successful beyond what we could have imagined, allowing these innovative youths to use communication as a catalyst to drive social change and shape the narrative internationally surrounding agroecology, climate issues, and how to ‘feed the world.’

Watch the videos and learn more about the program on our website or on YouTube, and find entries with a deeper look at the stories featured in these videos on our blog.

Field to Film: A Youth Storytellers Film Festival 

In December, we took our Youth Storytellers program one step further by hosting a virtual film festival, showcasing stories from even more incredible youths throughout Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Honduras, and Nepal. The two-hour, first-of-its-kind event gave even more Youth Storytellers the chance to highlight their work capturing community-led and ecological farming solutions, spreading them locally, and changing the narrative globally on how to tackle hunger, poverty, and climate change.

Read more about the film festival on our blog.

Addressing the Global Food Crisis Through Agroecology: A Series By Chris Sacco

Over the course of Summer 2022, Groundswell International’s Director of Program Management, Chris Sacco, published a four-part article series on LinkedIn examining the roots of the interconnected, worldwide food insecurity and environmental crises and the need to accelerate ecological farming methods as a means to address them. 

Through the series, Chris offered a wealth of important information – including well-researched data – as he offered a critical look at the current, broken global food system and outlined the current food crisis, how the world has gotten to this point, and how we can reverse course. We feel this is an important read for anyone who cares about the future of our planet and the good of our fellow humans, as well as anyone who is interested in why we do the work that we do here at Groundswell International.

Learn more about Chris’ series on our blog and read all four parts on LinkedIn.

Global Conference 2022

During the week of September 19, Groundswell International gathered with our partners from fourteen different countries throughout the world in Andhra Pradesh, India, for our 2022 Global Conference.

The week included field visits and dialogue with the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming program (APCNF) to see how they are scaling agroecological transitions in that state and discuss how we can continue to learn from and collaborate with each other. We met with women farmers, learned about their wide network of self-help groups, and of various techniques to regenerate soil biology and land to improve production, lives, and climate resilience.   

Read a message from our Executive Director, Steve Brescia, summarizing the trip on our blog. We will share more of our experiences and lessons learned from this gathering in 2023.

Farmers’ Knowledge and Seeds in Mexico: Food Solutions via Mexico Seed Project

In 2022, we completed a three-and-a-half-year program in southern Mexico focused on strengthening indigenous farming communities and local NGOs to improve the management of their native seed systems. Groundswell’s Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean, Edwin Escoto, provided an overview of the project, which “show[ed] us that feelings of empowerment are growing around working to strengthen local seed systems and bringing focus to those systems’ vital importance for families, not only for consumption, but also for food security”, and the results he witnessed in the field.

Read Edwin’s highlights of the Mexico Seed Project on our blog.

THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY: How Africa can Survive and Thrive

Groundswell International’s Director of Action Learning and Advocacy for West Africa, Peter Gubbels, contributed to “THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY: How Africa can Survive and Thrive,” a book in the Barefoot Guide Agroecology Series. Peter served as both a writer and editor for the book, which examines Africa’s diverse food systems and the impact they have experienced from the current climate crisis and the industrial food system. “The Climate Emergency” also shares stories of hope and regeneration as a result of the use of agroecology from farmers, pastoralists, fishers, indigenous peoples, women, and youth throughout the African continent.

Learn more about the book here, and read a free PDF version here.

“My Food is African: A Campaign to Improve Health and Support Farmers”

We always love to see our staff act to strengthen local alliances and movements, and Peter once again shared his knowledge on agroecology in Africa with IPPMedia for an article titled “My Food is African: A Campaign to Improve Health and Support Farmers”. 

The article, which quotes Peter extensively, discusses the use of agroecology in Africa, the diverse food systems throughout the continent, and the effects of climate change and food industrialization. The article also includes Peter’s reflections on the Uganda meeting of the Citizens and Agroecology working group, which he attended.

Read the article here. 

Report From The Field: Honduras

Groundswell International’s newest staff member, Chandi Guntupalli, Donor Relations Manager, hit the ground running and visited Honduras with Steve Brescia at the end of March 2022 for five days to meet with our partner, Vecinos Honduras, and discuss our plans for the Central American Dry Corridor. 

Chandi documented her first trip into the field on our blog.

Report from the Field: Senegal & Mexico

This summer Groundswell International staff member Ethan Scully, Grants Manager, had the opportunity to witness two of our programs in action during trips to Oaxaca, Mexico, and Thiès, Senegal, that took place over the course of a couple of months. Though on completely different continents with completely different cultures, Ethan found that farmers in Oaxaca and Thiès shared “an overwhelming sense of solidarity and loyalty, not only with other members of their respective communities but also with the land they cultivate,” a testament to what makes agroecology a desirable option for rural communities throughout the globe.

Read more about Ethan’s experiences in the field in a report on our blog.

Support Groundswell International in furthering our progress in 2023

We’re so grateful to our partner organizations and the important work they do on the ground in the communities we serve. We’re also grateful to all those who support Groundswell International and our partners in doing this important work. 

The progress we make each year is made possible by the financial contributions of supporters around the globe. If you’re passionate about increasing food security for rural communities, reversing the effects of climate change and food industrialization, and strengthening communities to build sustainable farming and food systems from the ground up, please consider donating to Groundswell International. 

You can also support Groundswell’s efforts for free every time you shop at Amazon by using AmazonSmile. Simply go to smile.amazon.com and choose Groundswell International as your desired charity, or in the Amazon app find “Settings” in the main menu (☰) and tap on “AmazonSmile” to set your charity of choice. Make sure to visit smile.amazon.com each time you shop on Amazon, and Groundswell International will receive a donation for every qualifying purchase you make, at zero cost to you.

Thank you for joining us in our mission in 2022, we’ll see you in 2023 as we continue our work and share more stories of hope, resiliency, and sustainable solutions from the field!

Field to Film: A Youth Storytellers Film Festival

Over the last several months we’ve shared stories of rural communities and local food systems throughout Central America and West Africa, as documented by the youths in those communities as part of our Youth Storytellers Program.

A joint effort between Groundswell International, our partner organizations, and these ambitious young people, the Youth Storytellers Program has enabled local change-makers to use communication as a catalyst to drive social change and shape the local and global narrative surrounding agroecology, climate issues, and how to ‘feed the world’, as they have written, filmed, and edited these videos and served as an inspiration to other young members of their communities.

Voices From the Field

So far, we’ve shared stories out of Honduras and Burkina Faso, documenting smallholder farmers, women entrepreneurs, and young innovators, including the strategies and techniques critical to their success and the universal elements they share with other farmers around the world. Through these stories, the Youth Storytellers have highlighted the improved resilience achieved by farming with nature instead of against it. They are shining a light on communities regenerating their local economies, fighting food insecurity, and establishing financial independence. 

We’ve been inspired as we’ve shared these first few stories with you, but there are still many more stories to share! This is why we’re now beyond excited to be able to enable even more Youth Storytellers from around the globe to make their voices heard and bring you new examples of empowerment, transformation, and triumph as we host our first-ever virtual film festival: Field to Film. 

Field to Film: A Youth Storytellers Film Festival 

On December 2, 2022, Youth Storytellers from Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Honduras, and Nepal showcased their work capturing community-led and ecological farming solutions, spreading them locally, and changing the narrative globally on how to tackle hunger, poverty, and climate change.

In case you missed it, you can watch the full film festival recording here:

Farmers’ Knowledge and Seeds in Mexico: Food Solutions via Mexico Seed Project


World Food Day, celebrated on October 16th, focuses attention on solutions to hunger and poverty. For Groundswell International, that is where our attention is focused every day. Seeds, soils, water, markets – these are all essential and interconnected parts of healthy farming and food systems.  But at the center of it all are family farmers – their human ingenuity and solidarity, building on their indigenous knowledge, cultures, and legacy of continuously innovating solutions with nature, instead of against it. We just completed a three and a half year program in southern Mexico focused on strengthening indigenous farming communities and local NGOs to improve management of their native seed systems. The result is an increased ability and autonomy to adapt, store, and distribute, and cultivate their most effective and preferred native seed varieties, increasing their capacity for food production and bolstering resilience to climate change. Edwin Escoto, Groundswell’s Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean, led the program coordination and highlighted some of the results below.  We are grateful for the support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for this vital program.

Steve Brescia, Executive Director

Our work to catalyze resilient seed systems in Mexico, which went on through the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, deepened vital lessons for Groundswell International and our regional partners. The program included a partnership of eight NGOs working with 1,202 smallholder farm families across 55 communities in three states in southern Mexico. The collaboration has contributed to lasting change in the seed and food systems in communities throughout the country.

The pandemic highlighted how much we all have to learn about sustainable livelihoods. We need to better understand how to live with nature in a regenerative and healthy way. Smallholder and indigenous farmers already have a deep respect for nature and its cycles, as well as an understanding of how to replicate natural processes to feed growing populations despite many challenges.

This program served to strengthen farmer’s seed systems, to enable long-term seed and food security for the most vulnerable farming households, and to increase the capacity of eight local organizations through participatory learning. Organizations emphasized their local needs and priorities. Our partners at Centro de Desarrollo Integral Campesino de la Mixteca (CEDICAM), support the local farmer population through the promotion of agroecology. CEDICAM and the communities it represents have gained recognition for their work at regenerating eroded landscapes in Oaxaca. 

We began by supporting partners to carry out a Diagnostic Seed Safety Assessment (DSS) to deepen knowledge about the current state and community management of diverse, native seed varieties. The DSS became a tool for community learning, allowing farmers to develop action plans over several seasons to improve the selection, storage, distribution and use of quality native seeds, in order to improve their farming systems and production of healthy food. 

The climate crisis is a huge challenge for these farming communities. But they are finding local solutions through farmer experimentation, allowing them to strengthen skills to innovate on their farms,  and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of local seed varieties, including resilience to climate change. Agroecological practices are enabling farmers to better manage unpredictable rainfall, droughts and flooding. Two great achievements of this program include:

  • the emergence of community seed guardians, who have created ‘seed houses’ as a space where peasant families interested in cultivating and adapting them to their regions can obtain them, and
  • strengthening knowledge on the importance of improving soil life and fertility, essential for seed productivity.
Mexico Seed Project: Puente Overview

The program also met the growing interest of farmers to recover native seed varieties that have nearly been lost. This included strengthening family and community seed reserve systems to face the effects of droughts, delayed rains, and the presence of early frosts. 

Mexico Seed Project: Corn Seed Identification

In conclusion, the project shows us that feelings of empowerment are growing around working to strengthen local seed systems and bringing focus to those systems’ vital importance for families, not only for consumption, but also for food security. Agroecology offers an alternative and efficient perspective for field work, especially because of its emphasis on respecting traditional work, being adaptable and incorporating traditional local knowledge.

This program reminds us that our mission of strengthening communities to build healthy farming and food systems from the ground up remains vital. Building on their traditional knowledge, indigenous farmers in Mexico have growing skills, strategies and power to improve seed systems, food production and lives. 

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