From Crisis to Healthy Farming and Food Systems
In a few short months an urgent question has absorbed people around the world. How and when do we end the COVID 19 pandemic? The answers depend on what actions we take. They also depend on recognizing the profound connections between our human health and the health of our ecosystems, economies, communities and societies. All of these rest on our agricultural and food system. Groundswell International works with family farming communities in West Africa, the Americas and South Asia to sustainably overcome poverty and improve lives. These communities are accustomed to facing crisis. They are pio …
Agroecology and Food Sovereignty are Critical in the Fight Against COVID-19 in West Africa
For over 10 years, Peter Gubbels, Groundswell International’s Director of Action Learning for West Africa, has supported our national level network members to improve food and nutrition security in rural communities across the Sahel. Peter and his wife live in a village in northern Ghana. He is deeply and personally concerned with how the COVID-19 pandemic is evolving on the African continent. Read Peter’s thoughts on the spread of COVID-19 in West Africa and how the international community can help mitigate the long-term impact of the pandemic on the region’s farmers and overall food security …
Groundswell’s COVID-19 Response: People-Centered Solutions for Community Health, Food Security and Resilience
COVID-19 is spreading to developing countries, where high levels of poverty, inequality and inadequate healthcare infrastructure make controlling the virus even more challenging than it is in developed nations. Almost three billion people across the developing world do not have access to clean water, and hundreds of millions do not have access to adequate healthcare and live in crowded conditions where social distancing is all but impossible. Without urgent action, the COVID-19 pandemic will kill hundreds of thousands of people and set millions more on a downward spiral of ill health and pover …
The Most Important Innovation for Agriculture in Africa: Democracy
The front page headline of Ghana’s Business and Financial Times for January 17, 2020 reads: “National Well-being wins over foreign interests as the gov’t ditches GMOs.” The article quotes a dramatic statement from Ghana’s Agriculture Minister Dr. Akoto Owusu Afriyie, rejecting the need for GMO seeds in Ghana. “I’m a scientist,” said Minister Afriyie. “I believe in science. GMO is a method of science. But it’s like cracking a nut with a sledgehammer. Ghana does not need to go GMOs… Forget about GMOs. There is no GMO in what we are doing. It’s only when we have …
Groundswell International Publishes Brief: “Scaling Agroecology in the Sahel: Elements of Good Practice – A Guide for Civil Society”
“There is a lot of learning that still needs to be done about how to scale or amplify agroecology,” says Peter Gubbels, Groundswell’s Director for Action Learning and Advocacy in West Africa. “Some valuable principles have been identified, but there are not a lot of good, practical examples of how to do this. What are the steps and pathways? It is a crucial area of learning because we have to scale agroecology effectively to transform and fix our global agricultural and food system.” The recent IPPC report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) emphasizes nature-based so …
