I came across this Video on Youtube recently. It pretty much sums up my thoughts on loosening the clutch of poverty in rural smallholder farming communities in Africa. I like how roger thurow, author of the book The last hunger season considers the term "hungry farmers" an oxymoron. A hungry subsistence farmer, what could be more absurd? Most importanly i respect the approach to his message. It is a more people based approach, contrary to the usual data and global statistics approach which isnt supported by impactful action. This obssession with stats mostly allows the few success stories to fall through the gaps and remain undocumented or just simply lumped up with the broader perspective. Farmers who are turning their lives around amidst significant challenges through scalable approaches and can be used as beacons of what may be and possibly adopted by other are usually broad brushed under "severely food insecure and undernourished communities." A lot of it as Roger puts it comes from a lack of respect for the ability and potential of smallholder farmers in the region to feed themselves, their communities and the continent as a whole. He even goes as far as encouraging investors to view smallholder farmers as worthy customers who arent "too poor, too remote, too insignificant" from whom good business could be made. The one acre fund was able to recongise that it is not handouts they need but the opportunity to prove their ability by mutually beneficial investment.
No comments:
Post a Comment