groundswellorg

At Groundswell International, collaboration is at the heart of what we do. We have always worked closely with local farmers in West Africa, the Americas, and South Asia and partner organizations in those areas because we know that the needs of every community are unique, and no one understands those unique needs better than the locals experiencing them. 

While our focus has always been on enabling local farmers to support their communities by creating healthy farming and food systems, we believe we can do even more. 

Currently, the world, including the US and the international communities we work to support, is facing multiple crises related to our economic and political models, climate change, migration, and beyond. How different communities view these crises vary, but the work we do with our local partners is deeply rooted in understanding the effects of these challenges on our communities and how to solve them. As awareness of the damage from systemic racism and colonialism grows globally, it becomes increasingly important to amplify the voices of folks from the communities most impacted by these issues.

Voices From the Field 

Our Executive Director and co-founder, Steve Brescia, spent last year speaking with leaders from our local partner organizations and our regional coordinators to understand the unique views and needs of their communities. What ways are they seeing racism and colonialism directly play out in their countries? How are political and economic issues like food scarcity, climate change, and environmental crises affecting their communities? 

Rather than sharing curated facts about global challenges, we are focusing on raising others’ voices so you can hear straight from our partners and coordinators about the challenges facing their communities and the work they are doing to tackle those challenges head-on. Challenges like a Western influence in Mali that is causing a domino effect crisis: “We see that the fertility of the soil is declining,” Pierre Demble of partner organization Sahel Eco says. “People are more or less in a mindset in their mind that if you don’t use chemical fertilizer you will not produce. Although they know in the past they were using compost which was giving them very good production, but today due to all this marketing and the media, the people think if we don’t use chemical fertilizer we will not produce. So we have here a crisis of the agriculture production which is also affecting the economic power of the community.”

This focus on individual community voices just makes sense, because our partner organizations are doing work at the microlevel in their communities. Partners like Fatou Batta of Association Nourrir Sans Détruire in Burkina Faso, who says their “program is trying to not exacerbate the tension between the community, but working to reduce the inequality, to reduce vulnerability, to make sure people can live together, share their concern, discuss their concern and identify the solution or the activities they can do together so that we improve their lives. So what we can do at a microlevel is that, in the villages.”

From our partners, you will also hear about the opportunities being created in these communities, like in Mali, where Dembele says they are working to enable youths “to really reform our governance system to actually give the power to the people, how they want the community to be governed in the coming year.”

The work we do on the ground is important, but sometimes the best way to empower is to sit back and allow other voices to be heard. It is only through true allyship, listening, and mutual learning that we can truly understand these challenges to catalyze change and reverse the downward spiral of poverty and vulnerability. 

Please join us in listening.

Each year, the annual report sums up the progress our organization has made in countries around the world. 2020 was a year plagued by hardships and crises, yet we were still able to partner with grassroots organizations to bring agroecological principles where resilience to hunger, disease, and poverty was needed most.

Here are a few highlights from the 2020 Annual Report

• In Haiti, Groundswell is working with Partenariat pour le Développement Local (PDL) to scale farmer-led agroecology to address climate change. In 2020 over 360 community leaders, nearly 40% women, were engaged in participatory workshops to better understand the causes of climate change, based on their own experience and analysis, and what farming families can do about it. 

• In Burkina Faso, we have been working with Association Nourrir sans Détruire (ANSD) to strengthen a territorial movement in the eastern part of the country for farmer-led innovation and spread of agroecological alternatives. Farmers are obtaining incredible results despite the water scarcity near the encroaching Sahara desert. Women are playing a leading role, organizing to produce vegetables in the dry season, and creating more nutritious household gardens. 

• In southern Mexico, the loss of native seed varieties is a crisis undermining indigenous communities and cultures. In response, Groundswell is facilitating a collaborative action-learning process with eight local NGOs to strengthen farmers’ capacities to recover, improve, produce and distribute quality native seeds to farmers.

• In 2020 in response to COVID-19, we contribute to the AFSA publication The Barefoot Guide to Surviving COVID-19. Groundswell International’s Peter Gubbels was a part of, the Natural Food Barefoot Guide Writer’s Collective, which wrote the guidebook. It documents how people across Africa can weather the COVID-19 pandemic, debunking many misconceptions from the food industry. The guide provides real, sustainable solutions to the health challenges families face, and guidance on producing and eating healthy local food.

To learn more about the programs we support that are strengthening the capacity of communities to sustainably improve their lives, and to see a breakdown of our financials for 2020, read the full annual report. You can also view our audited financials for 2020 here.

In southern Mexico, the loss of native seed varieties is a crisis undermining indigenous communities and cultures. We at Groundswell International are facilitating a collaborative action-learning process with eight local NGOs to strengthen farmer’s capacities to recover, improve and distribute quality local corn, beans, wheat, and amaranth seeds. This reverses the loss of biodiversity and improves food production and resilience to climate change.

Seed production is essential, not only to conserve biodiversity, but also for rural communities’ food security. This is broadly involved in the community culture of all three regions (Campeche, Chiapas and Oaxaca) where the project is being implemented.

The initiative involves over 1,150 families spread across 53 communities in the states of Campeche, Chiapas and Oaxaca. Together the organizations and communities have established 38 plots for participatory seed improvement, and 123 plots to produce and distribute 92 different native varieties of corn, beans, wheat and amaranth. 

In 2020 they produced enough seed to sow 133 acres of corn (2,160 lbs. of seed); 103 acres of wheat (7,385 lbs.); and 463 acres of beans (6,195 lbs.).  

The pandemic has only exposed the depths of social inequality and the extensive damage we have caused to the ecosystem, forming a breeding ground facilitating disease. Undoubtedly COVID-19 has highlighted human vulnerability. 

The pandemic has also been an opportunity to innovate and use other communication tools to discuss and review the project’s progress together with farmers. One thing that seems very important is that, despite our low presence in communities during this year, there are other people interested in participating in the project.

“In spite of COVID 19 restrictions, the organizations were able to organize seed fairs, community events, and seed exchanges,” said program coordinator Edwin Escoto. “We saw the creative work of communities to ensure their own food production during the crisis, and many young people are returning to communities to farm.  We need to integrate the youth to take this work forward.”