Small farmers can be major actors in reducing agriculture's carbon footprint - UN agency

Farmers growing lettuce and other vegetables in the highlands of Bevatu Settlement, Nadrau,
Viti Levu, Fiji. Photo: IFAD/Susan Beccio

REPRINT > from UN News Centre / July 8, 2015

Helping farmers adapt to the impacts of climate change can also significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, finds a new study released today by one of the agricultural agencies of the United Nations system.

“What this report shows is that smallholder farmers are a key part of the solution to the climate change challenge,” said Michel Mordasini, Vice President of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). “With the right investments, smallholders can feed a growing planet while at the same time restoring degraded ecosystems and reducing agriculture's carbon footprint.”

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Dominican Republic’s deportation of Haitians is ‘akin to apartheid’

Getting their voices heard: Activists participate in a rally outside the Embassy of the Dominican
Republic on Monday in in Washington, DC. Activists protested the mass deportations and expulsions
taking place in the Dominican Republic, as a result of a 2013 ruling. | Alex Wong Getty Images

REPRINT > by Raymond A. Joseph for the Miami Herald / June 27, 2015

Dominican officials are poised to deport thousands of Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent to Haiti in an ethnic-cleansing folly with wide-range repercussions.

The Dominican officials, who fancy their country as being white, are determined to rid the Dominican Republic of as many people as possible who “look Haitian,” meaning too black for their taste. (Although of fairer skin than Haitians, the overwhelming majority of Dominicans would be classified as black in the U.S.)

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Moringa vs Cancer

Could moringa leaf powder treat cancer? Dr. Il Lae Jung, with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in South Korea, addresses this question in a scientific paper outlining his research into the potential of a new type of water-soluble extract from moringa leaves to treat various types of cancers.

Published last year in the peer-reviewed science site PLOS ONE, the study is titled “Soluble Extract from Moringa oleifera Leaves with a New Anticancer Activity.” While more research is needed, the study suggests moringa could potentially be an ideal anticancer therapeutic candidate specific to cancer cells.

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Meet moringa, the (latest) world’s most amazing superfood

REPRINT > by Nathanael Johnson for Grist / June 16, 2015

I have an involuntary reflex to the word “superfood”: It makes a single eyebrow twitch upward. Or, if I see the word in a story pitch, another reflex causes a spastic finger to delete the email. This reflex stems from Pavlovian conditioning: Every time I have heard the word “superfood,” I soon after find that someone is spoon-feeding me a hot bowl of hype. 

So what I’m about to write here comes as a surprise even to me: Moringa should be the next superfood! 

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Smallholder farmers are the new global food frontier

A farmer walks with her son during a potato harvest in Huancavelica, southern Peru. Smallholder farmers
produce nearly 70% of all food consumed worldwide. Photograph: Martin Mejia/AP

One-third of the world’s 7.3 billion people are smallholder family farmers who produce nearly 70% of all food consumed worldwide. So why aren’t we doing more to protect them?

REPRINT > by Hugh Locke for The Guardian / May 12, 2015

A third of the world’s 7.3 billion people are smallholder farmers and their families who produce nearly 70% of all food consumed worldwide on 60% of the planet’s arable land. For what sounds like a major part of the global economy, you would expect these farmers to be relatively well off and financially secure. But they aren’t. In fact, they represent the majority of the poorest and hungriest people on earth. How did this happen? 

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T&C Philanthropy 2015, with Activist-in-Chief Bill Clinton

Supporting 3,100 projects in 180 countries, the Clinton Foundation is the most powerful reimagining ever of what post-presidency can be. But can the fixer-in-chief work his magic on Haiti?

REPRINT > by Klara Glowczewska for Town & Country / May, 2015

Introduced in the 15th century to Hispaniola (the name Columbus gave the island that now comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic when he shipwrecked here in December 1492), limes were successfully cultivated in Haiti until the 1990s. "Their oil, used in cosmetics and the beverage industry, was, like Haitian vetiver, considered the best in the world," says Hugh Locke, a blan from Westchester (one is acutely aware of skin color in Haiti). Locke heads the Haitian nonprofit Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) and is scanning the sky, as am I, for Clinton's craft.

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Fidel Castro’s Daily Moringa Regimen

Fidel Castro inspecting a moringa tree in 2012. Photo credit: Guerrillero Newspaper.

In CNN’s April 4th website coverage of Fidel Castro’s recent public appearance, they note that, “Cuban state media Saturday released images of a rare public appearance by former leader Fidel Castro, who met with a group of Venezuelans who were on a solidarity mission to the island.”

The CNN story goes on to say that, “La Radio del Sur, a Venezuelan radio station that first reported Castro's appearance, said the leader met with the group for about 30 minutes and also talked to them about moringa, a plant with medicinal qualities that the former leader is cultivating at his home in Havana.”

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Global Food Industry Reluctant Leaders of Smallholder Farming Revolution

REPRINT > by Hugh Locke for Huffington Post "What's New" / April 1, 2015

In recent years the global food and beverage industry has surpassed development agencies and donor governments when it comes to improving the productivity and income of smallholder farmers in developing countries.

Food and beverage companies did not set out to champion smallholder farmers: for the most part they simply wanted to secure an ongoing supply of agricultural commodities and respond to changing consumer preferences. Companies of all shapes and sizes—from global giants like Nestlé, Unilever and Heineken to modest artisanal producers—started purchasing increasingly large amounts of agricultural output from smallholder farmers in middle income and developing nations.

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