Bill & Melinda Grant Sustainable Ag Project

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Friday, 17 July 2009 14:34

Washington, D.C., July 2009 – Bolstered by a $1.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Worldwatch Institute has launched a two-year project to assess the impacts of farming techniques on the environment and agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. With the knowledge that about a billion people around the world go to bed hungry every night, Worldwatch President Christopher Elavin said “Agricultural development is at a crossroads. The current crisis offers a window of opportunity for refocusing the world's attention on food, agriculture, and rural areas, and for reestablishing food security as a global priority.” This “first-of-its-kind” project will give policymakers, farmer and community networks and international donors, research on practical solutions for creating sustainable food security. Worldwatch said the project involves “women farmers in decision-making at all levels.” Among the approaches planned by Worldwatch include adding nitrogen-fixing plants into crop rotations as a low-cost solution for enriching soils and breaking weed and pest cycles. Another is overcoming freshwater shortages with rain harvesting, efficient irrigation, micro dams, and cover cropping. Strengthening local breeding capacity, including the use of farmer-run seed banks and genetic markers of important crop traits will be a goal of the project – plus tapping international carbon-credit markets to reward farmers for enriching their soils and planting carbon-sequestering tree crops as a key component of the plan. Partner organizations – including Heifer International, Rodale Institute, Slow Food International, International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the Global Water Policy Project - are providing on-the-ground research in locations around the world, access to farmer-to-farmer networks, and knowledge of specific agricultural interventions, from irrigation and soil improvement to market development. The project will culminate in the release of State of the World 2011: Nourishing the Planet, the 27th edition of the Institute's annual report. SOURCE: Sustainable Food News < Prev   Next >