Sustainable Community Development

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Comment by Matt Wilson on June 1, 2010 at 7:54am

Hoping this conference will appeal to all, though Im still trying to work out if DC is the right audience for us. Its an incredible event, amazing speakers. Please take a look www.wsmconference.com and would welcome your feedback if it is or isnt right for you to attend. Many thanks
Matt.

Comment by manilaman on May 2, 2010 at 5:13am

Congratulations to your Backpack Farming Organization. Sharing Backpack Farming's Success & Failure experiences would be good input to my interest in mitigating poverty in Rural Philippines.With a new set of Local Government Officials elected into office for a 3-yr term, Backpack Farming might make a good Development Model in select Philippine Island-Communities.

Comment by Rachel Zedeck on May 1, 2010 at 8:07am

Agri-preneurship, A Solution to Africa's Food Crisis
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-zedeck/agri-preneurship-a-soluti_b_535004.html

In 2007, I arrived in Southern Sudan to research new agriculture development models designed to stabilize South Sudan's development. Despite having previously worked in other post-conflict regions, such as Kosovo and Iraq, my experiences in East and the Horn of Africa have both inspired me and brought me to the verge of emotional bankruptcy. Africa's stability and independent success lie not with solutions imposed upon her by well-meaning internationals; rather by providing modern technologies and techniques to rural farmers.

Over the past three years, I have worked in East Africa incubating new Base of the Pyramid (BOP) programs, encompassing income generation, food security and sustainable value chains. My goal has been to tap the latent potential of East and the Horn of Africa's rural farmers.

I represent a new breed of "agri-preneur" in Africa. By clarifying the links between drought, food security, malnutrition and food aid, we can incubate practical solutions to a preventable genocide.

At the moment, droughts have severely impacted the region's grain belts; fields lie barren. According to UN data, 24 million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia (Horn of Africa) and Kenya, Tanzania, and parts of Uganda (East Africa) now need food aid, up from 20 million in early 2009. Coupled with wildly fluctuating grain prices, drought adversely affects regional trade patterns. If one country is affected by diminished rainfall and a weak harvest, then the region as a whole suffers, with the most vulnerable--children and nursing mothers - suffering most.

Since May 2009, the number of children in need of emergency assistance in the Horn of Africa has grown by nearly one million - an increase of nearly 25%. According to Save the Children, the average child needs 40 vital nutrients to grow. Absent that, their brains and bodies suffer permanent damage.

Admittedly, living in Kenya, I am perhaps numb to the reality of children starving in plain view. For the average American, though, the reality has been further masked by a deluge of fundraising campaigns and images of starving children in refugee camps. Unfortunately these campaigns fail to adequately explain the causal realities of malnutrition or the inadequate programs supported by both international NGOs and UN agencies, such as World Food Program (WFP).

Last week, Friends of the WFP published a blog post, Nutrition: 10 Reasons to Face the Challenge. It uses language like "poor nutrition," as if children in Darfur's refugee camps are sneaking a Twinkie instead of a well balanced meal. According to the World Bank, $3.6 billion would feed all the undernourished children (under the age of 5). Such campaigns concern me for three reasons:

1. Not enough food is being produced to supply these programs. Currently, not enough grain exists in East Africa for WFP to meet the needs of refugee camps in Darfur. How ethical is it to commit to this goal?
2. Food aid does not address nutrition. According to UNICEF, from 2004-2007 only 1.7% of interventions reported as 'development food aid/food security' and 'emergency food aid' actually addressed nutrition needs." Our taxes are wasted on programs that that fill stomachs with empty calories.
3. What about the malnourished children over 5 years suffering from severe malnutrition? Instead of addressing a global picture, it seems WFP has spent millions of dollars to design "Sprinkles," a micronutrient power with no mention of more sustainable food production models.

With an estimated 80-100 million small-landholder farmers in East Africa and 25 million in South Africa, farming is a tangible and practical solution to the food insecurity catastrophe in both East and the Horn of Africa. Additionally, it will impact rural incomes and national GDPs, independent of new trade agreements with countries exporting eco-friendly agro-technologies, such as India, Israel, Holland, and the United States.

75 years ago the British Empire envisioned Sudan as a global breadbasket. It still could be. The solution: empowering rural farmers. This can be accomplished, where the UN and so many NGOs have failed by financing commercially viable value chains in cooperation with available agro technologies.

In April 2009, I and my team of wonder team of agriculture experts launched the Backpack Farm Agriculture Program (www.Backpackfarm.org). The program supports rural farmers in East and the Horn of Africa with cutting-edge agricultural programs, training, and monitoring to support regional food security and income generation through sustainable value chains.

Programs such as mine are imperative because small-landholder farmers still lack the technical capacity and financial equity to enter wholesale markets. Their yields are typically poor, estimated at one-quarter of the global average. To counter this, we designed a "fusion farming" model, eliminating the need for traditional DAP/CAN fertilizers. My team has married it with cost- effective drip irrigation and a training program on eco-friendly farming, including modules on rain water harvesting, perma-culture, non-tillage, and composting.

We are actively working with rural farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and Rwanda. One of our recent successes is a joint venture agreement with Mt. Kenya Gardens to help expand their out-grower network with 5,000 new farmers in the next 18 months. There is too much work to be done; however every milestone has been accomplished without a single dollar of international donor finance. I truly believe that agro-based, social enterprises like the Backpack Farm can and will play an essential role in solving East and the Horn of Africa's food crisis.

The international community appears to be taking note. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO_ and World Bank have recently rediscovered rural 'family' farming as the most important source of development, and target for investments to fight hunger. The [published by whom?] 2008 "International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)," produced a single, relevant message: small-scale family farming is the best available option to change the perverted global system of commodity trade and production and to limit the use of fossil fuels and chemical inputs. It is now the 'the best hope we have for not exceeding the limits of this planet, while still feeding the population.'

The Backpack Farm has just been named by Sotokoto Magazine in Japan as one of their "100 Green Fighters," as successful social enterprise due to our commitment to eco-farming and community development..

I deeply respect the professionals who are committed to emergency relief and humanitarian development programs. These men and women are some of the bravest souls living in unbelievable conditions exposed to disease, kidnapping, rape and attack from rebel groups, local security forces. I don't question their commitment to such noble work The problem is that the system they work within is deeply flawed and is incapable of providing sustainable food security for the worlds most vulnerable; women and children.

Comment by Rachel Zedeck on February 18, 2010 at 8:13am

Hello dev group... I hope everyone is having a great new year. I woudl apprecaite if you could please help me network our new fundraiser on kickstarter to finance a sustainable eco-farm microfinance scheme in Meru, Kenya. You can read more here: http://tinyurl.com/yep7gsa

Feel free to send me questions directly or post them online. I plan on updating it early next week with new pictures of the women's group.

Comment by Rachel Zedeck on October 15, 2009 at 2:57am

Good Morning

Please come follow the Backpack Farm on http://twitter.com/backpackfarm - www.backpackfarm.org We represent practical, sustainable and commercial dev models rolled into one. I regularly post on development, food security, women's issues, water and of course microfinance.

Look forward to seeing you online.

Rachel

Comment by K. Malhotra on July 23, 2009 at 11:37am

For folks interested in sustainability at-large, I highly recommend reviewing the following sustainability sites, frameworks and concepts (they can be found through major internet search engines):
- The Natural Step Canada
- The Five Captials
- Forum for the Future
- The Ecological Footprint
- Transition Towns
- UN Millennium Development Goals
- Agenda 21

Comment by Mustafa Nasereddin on October 15, 2008 at 4:18pm

Hi everybody! I joined Development Crossing recently and established a group for discussing water management issues, If you are interested you can search on (Integrated Water Resources Management)
Catch you later!
Mustafa

Comment by JD Polk on August 24, 2008 at 1:07pm

I have an agenda.....

My life's goal is to have all residential property co-generating electricity in North America by 2025. Little know fact it's only 25% of entire North American Grid Consumption.
This is attainable we have the technology and the man-power.....
We must start now!!!
Time for talk is over.....

I have introduced the Boldest Solar/Housing Initiative yet
To date…
Entire subdivisions of low-cost Modulars with little to no electric bill that retail from $79,900 to $149,900 680sq 2/1 to 1380sq 3/2
Meets the need for low-cost housing and helps over Stressed Grid during PEAK_USAGE hrs. As these subdivisions go on-line they will act as virtual mini-generating stations.

As well as helps the environment…
win-win-win.
It is the short term solution to a long term problem.......

I have relocated to South Georgia....
it is time to enlist All the help with this I can get.
I need more R & D with my new patent Idea an will be asking for Ga Tech's help.....with the SOLAR POWERED RECIRCULATOR GENERATOR which will drive the cost of production down by almost 60%.
And will also be going back to Washington DC in this election year to demand more from our "so called elected or soon-to-be-elected officials".

I am in negotiations with Roger Little of Spire Solar in Mass to build a 100mw manufacturing plant in Liberty County Ga.

My plan is simple mix Roger's little assembly line with Rapid Modular’s walling panels to produce under one roof the LOW-COST
Structures of the future.


By building our own PV and being the one of only 2 proposed PV plants in the entire southeast US. We will capture this market in FL, GA, AL, and SC, NC. Simply by cutting down on the cost of shipping we will be the viable option for all of the Solar Retailers in the Region.

The World Bank as well as Credit Suisse and The Asian Development Bank like the idea of low cost Modulars and Solar power in one so well once up an operational they wish to bring it to China and India……. http://push.pickensplan.com/profile/JDPolk

Comment by p.krishnamurthy on August 24, 2008 at 3:16am

the entire community must have the capacity to catch their own fish,not giving fish by thesomebody else, our A.P Govt is throughing fishes in to the community , it could not be a sustainable community development.

Comment by Erle Frayne Argonza on May 28, 2008 at 11:04pm

Good morning, Partners! I have begun to share notes about my diverse development experiences (pls see blog articles). My community development engagements are already incorporated in the welter of development experiences. Happy viewing!

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