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Youth

Poverty and
Hunger
Eradication
Richard Seshie
Ahedor

please send your comments to rickyci@hotmail.com


ABSTRACT

At 923 million people, the number of undernourished in 2007 was more


than 80 million higher than in 1990–92 with an exceptional 75 million
hungry added in 2007 due to high food prices1. 94.1% of youth in Zambia
are living with less than US$ 2 per day2; proving Hunger and Poverty are
particularly afflicting young people today.

In this paper, we offer explorative & provoking solutions that do not only
limit and appeal to youth but seek the benefit of the overall society and
where youth are given an increased role. Growing the food differently,
empowering the farmers and the communities, improving the financing &
distribution mechanisms and coping with food urgency in our opinion can
make a difference.

1. State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008 p.6;


http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0291e/i0291e00.htm
2. World Youth Report 2007 p.289; http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/wyr07.htm

GROWING THE FOOD DIFFERENTLY


Organic Food can be more profitable to farmers and produce
plenty at the same time. More and more westerner
consumers nowadays are vowing for food that can be pesticide-free,
fertilizer-free, healthier and so are willing to pay an extra price. Organic
farming can substantially increase young farmers’ revenues 3 and it is a
mistake to say it produces less as commonly perceived.
In India, many farmers have re-embraced Panchakavya4, a natural fertilizer
used since ancient times as a solid alternative to chemicals while the Land
Institute is promoting an agricultural system with the ecological stability of
the prairie (evergreen) and a grain yield comparable to that from annual
crops5. We can use the discipline of Biomimicry6 that studies natures’
best ideas and imitate them to improve human activities (for example it
has been learned how termites build tower-homes kept always cool inside
in spite of the varying climate that now serves to re-engineer interior
cooling). New lessons learnt can apply to make emerge new agricultural
methods that produce plenty of food, healthy and profitable.

The food basket can be made of crops (fruits, vegetables), meat and
others.
Pigs are fed with corn to get fat and then we eat the fat pig and the corns
that fed him.
This looks like an intermediary we can avoid. 40,000 pounds of potatoes
can be grown on an acre with the same surface giving only 250 pounds of
beef7. Just one kilo of beef requires
7-16 kg of grain or soy beans, up to 15,500 liters of water and 323 m2 of
grazing land8; resources that could benefit more people.
Many groups are offering vegetarianism support to consumers
which is good but not to cattle-owners looking for a practical
shift: say Moussa realized that growing his pigs demands too much from
nature and want to grow maize, he actually do not know where to start.
We could set up an International Initiative ‘From Meat to Crops’ that
help cattle-owners to effectively transition the use of their land to grow
crops, feed more people and make profits.

3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7865387.stm
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchakavya
5. http://www.landinstitute.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2000/08/10/37a747b43
6. http://www.biomimicry.net/
7. http://www.vegsource.com/how_to_win.htm#hunger
8. http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=38147&lang=en
EMPOWERING THE FARMERS AND THE COMMUNITIES

Farmers can well perform as farmer-entrepreneurs with the


environment surrounding them transformed into a living economic & social
area. We advocate the necessity to form community support systems that
enterprise social actions & seek financial strength while realizing many
additional revenues can be generated within agriculture practice.
Many collective bodies already exist among farmers, but too often to
discuss day-to-day issues they face. We recommend a more proactive
approach beyond reactivity where the farmers come together with an
entrepreneurial zeal to improve social and economic conditions. In Ivory
Coast, the national school canteens program9 (meant to feed all children
and prevent non education) owes its relative success in rural areas, thanks
partly to such groups. Here’s how the basic model works: an authorization
request to open a canteen has to emanate from the village community and
then is granted by the Ministry of Education. Beforehand, the village
provides parcels to grow crops, small cattle and sometimes go even by
building the canteen; other upfront costs are taken care by the
government/international agencies. Then the village empower a women
group (as non-export crops are traditionally grown by women) to exploit
the land and provide local-grown goods on a regular basis to the canteen
as well as divert a part for commercialization. Then, we have a committee
formed by the school management and villagers to overview daily
operations that appoints a canteen manager and women cooks. Both get
remunerated with each child paying an affordable 5 cents per day, the
excess serving to buy additional vegetables not grown on lands and
support very poor children exempted from paying this sum on
discriminative criteria set by the committee. The model has proven very
successful in rural areas and in 2004, already covered 45% of the total
number of schools with other countless benefits.

Community support systems or groups also mean collective bargaining


both in terms of selling their crops at a fairer price and to access funds
such as microcredit schemes10. Many
unseen additional revenues can be generated from agriculture.
Rice husks are an example. Considered as plain throwaway in the past, it
now serves as building material, fertilizer, insulation material in some
countries11. Electricity (yes!) can even be generated with rice husks
coupled with a small technology recently developed12. We have thousands
of villages without electricity, what if we have farmers with an
entrepreneurial mindset that decide to purchase with microcredit funds or
by pulling together money such non-proprietary, affordable technology;
that in turn is managed by a community group that takes the challenge to
bring electricity in every home with a small fee.

9. www.panapress.com/cantine/programme.doc (article in french)


10. Read from the self help group movement in India; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
help_group_(finance)
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_hulls
12. http://huskpowersystems.com/

Forest and natural resources management can be also transferred to local


communities and with agriculture bring new revenues through a wise and
sound carbon trading scheme13.
We would finally point out to the fact any community group or support
system should serve intergenerational knowledge transfer and be a form
of democratic tribune that offer to young farmers and women a voice to be
heard.

IMPROVING THE FINANCING & DISTRIBUTION MECHANISMS

Subsidies to western farmers are a big burden for developing countries


agricultural sectors and no balanced solutions has been adopted yet
during trade talks.
On the other hand, governments of developed & strong emerging
economies are finding new wealth in sovereign funds14, more aggressive in
financial markets today.
Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) is an investment strategy which
seeks to maximize both financial return and social good. NEPAD launched
in 2008 the Ai30 Socially Responsible Investment index with the aim to
attract sovereign wealth funds to invest a mere 1 per cent - or $30 billion -
of the world’s almost $3 trillion in Africa15. We can adapt such a proposal
to also ask developed countries to commit at least 1% of their
sovereign funds to agricultural projects in Africa as part of their SRI
agenda.

On the distribution side, we offer two explorative solutions.


New distribution channels such as food pneumatic tubes16(pipelines for
solid goods) can serve to transport agricultural goods from collection
centers to city wholesale markets. Too much often,
farmers are proposed an unfair price by intermediaries who take
advantage of their ignorance of market prices. Poor roads and expensive
inter-city transportation in most developing countries reap out also income
from farmers.
Farmers could get informed of the market price of the day through a
technology-based information system such as the already existing models
of K.A.C.E using mobile phones in east Africa17 or ITC e-Choupal computer
access points in India18 that however need to be scaled up on a national
level.
Goods produced by farmers (in preference in groups) are then collected in
villages through different means to semi-regional or regional collection
points and then conveyed to city wholesale markets through underground
or on-the-surface pneumatic tubes.
The costs avoided from fuel, transportation and other benefits such as
quick arrival, carbon certificates generation can be transferred or shared
with farmers.

13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_emission_trading
14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fund
15. http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2008/080916_Africa.doc.htm
16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube
17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eLZAMv6kVU
18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echoupal

An International initiative for ‘unused & near expired Food items’


could also help in reducing the amount of food thrown out by farmers, the
food industry and even consumers. Traditionally, farmers are frequently
forced to plough up or dispose of large amounts of good fruit and
vegetables because of rigid contracts with processors or retailers; the food
industry dispose of products not sold by retailers and near reaching an
expiry date as waste or donation to food banks and consumers throw out
often unused food.
The idea is to create an online matching system where demands from
NGOs, food banks and other associations collecting food to support the
needy meet the requests of disposal of farmers, the food industry and
consumers. Such a simple system can be time-effective and inform about
the closest locations where to drop or get such goods collected.

FOOD IN URGENCY

Many developing countries can be deemed as poor but are rich indeed
with natural resources. This is especially the truth for Africa and with the
unexpected climate change effects the continent can suffer more floods,
drought and other unprecedented events.
The former UN Oil-for Food program to support the Iraqi population during
the 1990’s19 can be revisited to introduce the concept of barter exchange20
into a formal commodity market. There should be an index of key
commodities that can be bartered for key goods under a special
international mechanism meant for emergency situations. Such a
mechanism can be crucial for time-response, advantageous as
unnecessary costs avoided in normal transactions can mean more food
bought and could be tax-free.

CONCLUSION

Modern agriculture today is struggling with many risks, challenges and


opportunities such as market speculation, biofuels, genetically modified
food, soil degradation, climate change effects, correlation between
petroleum & food prices and much more. But there is a much bigger
picture to be afraid of: a 21st century where we add to poverty and hunger
a 3rd word THIRSTINESS – millions of people thirsty of clean water. And we
know thirstiness on the contrary of hunger kills much more quickly.
There are global challenges as to how we manage our natural resources
and we hope this abstract has contributed to bring more awareness and
inspire solutions to tackle hunger & poverty for a better world.

19. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-food_program

20. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter

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