Farming Crisis: Filling An Empty Plate

HAVANA

Cuban Agriculture Needs Young People

By Patricia Grogg
When Gabriela Blanco tells other Cubans that she works in an organic vegetable cooperative and is getting ready to study agronomy at the university, she gets surprised looks.

Organic Cooperative Proves that Agriculture Can Prosper in Cuba

By Ivet González
“The people are the only thing that matters,” says agronomist Miguel Ángel Salcines, who then goes on to list a series of other “secondary” factors that have turned Vivero Alamar, an urban farm on the outskirts of the Cuban capital, into a rare success story in the country’s depressed agricultural sector.

Indigenous Brazilians Learn to Fight for the Right to Food

By Clarinha Glock
Indigenous communities in remote areas of Brazil have begun to recognise that they have the right to not be hungry, and are learning that food security means much more than simply having food on the table.

Mexico – Ground Zero in the Fight for the Future of Maize

By Emilio Godoy
In the 2011 action-thriller "Unknown", scientists are persecuted by the biotech industry because they plan the open release of a drought- and pest-resistant strain of maize that could help eradicate world hunger.

Preserving the Soil and Reaping Greater Harvests

By Orton Kiishweko
Smallholder farmer Peter Mcharo, from Morogoro Region in eastern Tanzania, has a reason to smile. His fields are full of green, healthy maize plants, he has richer soil and he spends less time farming now than he did two years ago.

Imminent Outbreak of Violence on Brazilian Amazon Estate

By Fabiola Ortiz
A fresh outbreak of violence between large landowners and landless peasants is looming in the Amazonian state of Pará, in northern Brazil.

Malawi’s Maize Shortage Hits Women

By Mabvuto Banda
Each night Esnart Phiri, a widow with five children, sleeps outside the gates of the state-run maize trader or Admarc market, in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, as she waits for days on end to buy maize.

Rural Colombia Takes Its Place on the Agenda

By Helda Martínez
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) initiatives working to overcome poverty and improve food security in the Colombian countryside can make a positive contribution to government efforts to tackle some of the most neglected problems facing this South American country.

Land, But No Paradise, for Brazil Massacre Survivors

By Fabiola Ortiz
The order came from the office of the governor of the northern Brazilian state of Pará, Almir Gabriel, at 5:00 PM on Apr. 17, 1996: clear route PA-150, the epicentre of social protests for land reform, at any cost.

Agriculture Still the Cinderella of Colombia

By Helda Martínez
Wearing a dusty hat and a smile that lights up his face, the septuagenarian José Alicapa does not shrink from the overwhelming bustle of the Colombian capital, which he reached after a 13-hour bus drive from the western province in Caldas.

Goat Farming, a Growing Alternative in Cuba’s Reform Process

By Ivet González
Goat farming is becoming popular among farmers given land to use as part of the economic reforms implemented in Cuba since 2008. The increase in goat rearing, in provinces like Cienfuegos on the southern coast, could help expand the limited range of basic food products available to Cubans.

Cameroonian Farmers Find Justice in Fair Fruit

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
The fruit farmers in Njombe, a small town in the coastal Littoral Region of Cameroon, learned a life lesson about “making lemonade out of lemons” - or rather “dried fruit out of fruit” when their land was taken from them by the government and leased to an international farming company.

From Brazil’s Family Farm to the School Lunchroom Table

By Fabiana Frayssinet
Separating Maria Gomes Morais’ farm and a school in Rio de Janeiro are fields, hills and dirt roads that are impassable when it rains. But a school meal programme has forged a path linking the fresh produce harvested by small farmers like her with the need to provide nourishment to 45 million schoolchildren around Brazil.

Green-Fingered Mauritian Farmers Go Green

By Nasseem Ackbarally
By Kritanand Beeharry’s side are thousands of watermelon seedlings that he has grown in small pots without the use of chemical fertilisers. As the farmer prepares his half-hectare piece of land in Soreze, near Mauritius’ capital Port-Louis, to plant the two-week-old seedlings, he takes a minute to admire his achievement. “Look at these, they look solid and better grown -- it’s the compost,” he says.

Market Gardening Provides Livelihoods for Refugees in DR Congo

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
Standing behind her market stall in Masisu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which overflows with cabbages, carrots and onions, Marceline Dusabe does not fit the traditional profile of an internally displaced person. She, unlike many others displaced by the internal conflict in North Kivu, is not in need of food aid.
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