Our agricultural programmes help distressed communities regain their self-sufficiency

Action Against Hunger's humanitarian assistance is much broader than most people realise. We respond to emergencies by distributing free food, clothing, and blankets. Although that's an important part of our work, we're equally focused on returning distressed communities to self-sufficiency.

And because our mandate is to ensure that distressed communities have adequate nutrition, many of our programs assist farmers. Sometimes farmers are still at work in the family's fields; sometimes they've been displaced by war or natural disaster and must begin again from scratch. Whatever their circumstances, we stand ready to help.

We begin by analysing the environment and the local culture. Whatever tools and training we provide must be appropriate for the climate and soil. The work we expect farmers to perform must be acceptable to their traditions. And the local community must be willing to eat the food that we help farmers produce.

Our food security programmes include :

• We give farmers seeds and tools or provide vouchers that enable farmers to buy their own. We choose the seeds based not only on what the community likes to eat but also on what would improve and diversify everyone's diet—providing, as always, that their culture finds the food acceptable. The tools we distribute include not only hoes and plows but also fertilisers and pesticides (organic whenever possible).
• We rehabilitate soil contaminated by floods. We clear rubble from fields, pump out bad water, haul in clean topsoil and fertilizers, and if necessary install new irrigation systems.
• Occasionally, we provide financing that allows farmers to purchase their own land and equipment.
•   We train novices not only to become farmers themselves but to train others as well.
• We train veteran farmers, introducing them to new techniques and new ideas for crops.
• We teach farmers about hygiene.
• When we introduce new crops, we teach people how to cook them.
• We give farmers breeding animals, sometimes on loan for a year, sometimes as an outright gift. These animals go either to individual farmers or to teams of five to 10 whom we organize as "community based organisations." Each farmer in the organisation receives an offspring of the breeding animals to sell, eat, or breed as the group sees fit.
• We vaccinate livestock.
• We train veterinarians.
• We distribute fodder for livestock.
• We build stables for livestock.
• We build storage facilities for fruits and vegetables.
• We teach farmers how to store their products.
• We create teaching farms.
• For produce farmers, we organise the same sort of community-based organisations (collaborative farms) that we create for livestock farmers.
• We introduce bee-keeping projects.
• We assist fish farmers. We give them nets, hooks, canoes, and lamps for fishing at night. We build fishing platforms offshore. We create and rehabilitate inland ponds for fish farming by pumping out polluted water and channeling fresh water. We stock ponds with fish eggs and breeding fish, and we replant vegetation for optimal oxygenation of the water.
• We teach soil conservation.
• We help farm families plan small vegetable gardens that will supplement and vary their diets.
• When insecurity or displacement prevents farmers from going to their fields, we help them begin cultivating land adjacent to their homes. And if the land isn't available for cultivation, we help them begin growing crops in large bags of dirt.
• We teach farmers how to process their products for marketing.
• We teach farmers how to market their products.
• We give farmers bicycles so they can carry their products to market.
• And if necessary, we teach farmers who can't farm for one reason or another new ways to earn their livelihoods. We train them to become barbers, carpenters, cooks, masons, and so on. (In fact, because a new farm can require several years to become economically viable, we occasionally teach these skills so farmers can earn a living until then)

Each of these efforts relates directly to our goal of permanently ending world hunger. Collectively, their impact helps ensure that hunger, once eradicated, is unlikely to return.

                                                                                                                     Henry Weil, Action Against Hunger - USA

           ***ENDS***

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