Copyright Eden Foundation
I hear aid workers in town talking about the need for emergency food operations in Niger again, and on UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund site, I read the following about Niger’s current state:
- Almost 30% of the population is in need of emergency food aid
CERF 2008
And there we go again… It’s a never ending story isn’t it, but then Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the World Food Program in 1995, put it so well:
Food is power. We use it to change behavior.
Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize.
Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the World Food Program
That was a long time ago, but it does not seem to me as if the world has changed much since - at least not when it comes to the general attitude of the aid industry. The recipient should be thankful for whatever he is to receive, whether he actually needs it or not.
Copyright Eden Foundation
There has also been a lot of talk lately as to how the rising food market prices are going to affect the farmers, and I watched a whole report on BBC about how Africa needs to find its very own variety of hybrid rice. But why do we not look further, for a more sustainable solution? The world has 78,000 edible plants to our disposal, of which only 20 have long been providing 90% of all that we eat. If some of these 20 species get too expensive for many of us, isn’t it time we started looking at the other species?
In the Tanout department, which is situated in the northernmost Nigerien agriculture zone and is without a doubt one of the least developed places on earth, the Eden farmers have been doing just that and with great success. Although they are now entering the hardest part of the year, they have not run out of millet - despite the fact that their harvests are often smaller than those of the farmers situated south in the country. Here are some images from an Eden village way north that came in just a week ago. The women were preparing millet and the kids were out playing, as children always do.
Copyright Eden Foundation 2008
Copyright Eden Foundation 2008
Copyright Eden Foundation 2008
Copyright Eden Foundation 2008
Copyright Eden Foundation 2008
So how is it then that the Eden farmers are faring so well, while the UN is once again calling for general food distributions?
Copyright Eden Foundation
Well, millet can only be harvested at the end of the rainy season, but the Eden trees have different harvest periods and are not part of the general food speculations that are going on in the country.
Copyright Eden Foundation
The Eden trees and bushes keep the women and children busy when their husbands are away on exodus, and the Eden fruits, which are rich in nutrients, are a favourite among the children. They are easily sold at the market, giving the women a source of income which is available to them whenever they need it.
Although the Western world is likely to label anything it doesn’t know as famine food, I think it is about time that we look around and see the possibilities that are available to us, rather than striving to maintain an unhealthy unvaried food culture.
In the Tanout area, this young woman told our field worker how precious her hanza beans (Boscia senegalensis) were to her and how they had enabled her to keep her sheep, since she was did not need the money to buy food. For those who do not know, keeping an animal or two in the Tanout area is like having money in the bank, which you keep for times in need.
Copyright Eden Foundation 2008
In contrast to many other farmers in Niger, her family still had millet left from the 2007 harvest, and the reason for this was that they were living off more than one species from their field.
Copyright Eden Foundation 2008
Although many prominent people within the aid industry like to speak in the large terms and offer giant solutions to problems of ‘catastrophic proportions’, the easiest way forward is often not the most complicated one and we should not underestimate the wisdom that the poor possess.
Copyright Eden Foundation
If 20 of our favourite species will be out of reach within a few years, then the good news is that there are still 77,980 left for us to use:
The Lost Treasures of Eden
Copyright Eden Foundation
5 users commented in " Rising world food prices & the Lost Treasures of Eden "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackSigh…they’re just not happy unless they can make money off us.
Sigh ,well this year 20 countries are said to be threatened by famine
So niger is not going to go international again
Haiti or Ethiopia are
I was forwarded this post from another blog. Once again it illustrates the need to think outside the box to solve the world’s challenges.
Eden Foundation seem to be doing this by introducing alternative food crops to areas where the crops they’ve depended on for generations are failing them.
As climate change shifts the patterns of what grows where I believe it is going to be important that food is diverse so that we can adapt to unpredictable changes.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices — William James
[…] food? I would not want anyone assume I was in need just because I served myself from one of the 77,980 edible species that the majority of the world population has yet to […]
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