Crossposted from BorderJumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

Originally featured in the North Carolina News Observer.

It's not every day you meet someone from Raleigh while traveling in Lusaka, Zambia. Dale Lewis might not have intended to spend decades in the landlocked African country of 12 million, but his passion for protecting wildlife and for conservation led him there - and his entrepreneurial spirit and desire to lift farmers from poverty while protecting the environment compelled him to stay.

How does Lewis, who attended Broughton High School and whose parents were longtime Raleigh residents, help alleviate hunger and poverty in Zambia's most rural areas?

By making peanut butter, and lots of it!

One of the first things you notice about grocery stores in Zambia is the plethora of processed foods from around the world, from crackers made in Argentina and soy milk from China to popular U.S. breakfast cereals. Complementing these foreign foods, however, are a variety of locally made and processed products, including indigenous varieties of organic rice, all-natural peanut butter and honey from the It's Wild brand.

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Crossposted from BorderJumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

We’ve taken some long bus rides in Africa. We spent eight bumpy hours on a bus from Nairobi to Arusha and another eight from Arusha to Dar Es Salaam.

The longest so far, though, has been between Kigali, Rwanda and Kampala, Uganda. As usual, we were looking out the window, admiring the crops growing by the side of the road, desperately trying not to think about how we had to pee, and trying not to panic about how fast our bus driver was maneuvering between other buses, cattle, and street vendors hawking roasted corn, bananas, and pineapples on the side of the road.

But once we arrived, we quickly realized, that we've never traveled anywhere quite like Rwanda.

Fifteen years ago one of the largest modern genocides occurred here.

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Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

In Rwanda, more than 85 percent of the population’s livelihood depends on small-scale agriculture. And the majority of primary school students—roughly 60 percent— will return to rural areas to make their living in ways, instead of going on to secondary or vocational schooling or university.

With that in mind, in 2007, the organization CARE designed the Farmers of the Future Initiative (FOFI) , a three year project that integrates modern and environmentally sustainable agriculture training into primary school curriculum in Rwanda—making traditional schooling more relevant to the average Rwandan student.

The project started with 27 pilot schools in nine districts: Nyamagabe and Nyaruguru Districts in the Southern Province, Gatsibo and Nyagatare Districts in the Eastern Province, and Karongi, Rutsiro, Rubavu, Nyabihu and Ngororero Districts in the Western Province. Each pilot school received funding from CARE to invest in a school garden or farm. After one year, profits from the garden went back into the school’s agriculture program while the other half was used to help another school, called a satellite school, start its own garden. By the end of the project there were 28 satellite schools, each with its own garden started with the help of another school.

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Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

Gertrude Hambira doesn’t look like someone who gets arrested regularly. Nor do the other women and men in suits who work with her at the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), formed in the mid-1980s to protect farm laborers. But arrest, harassment and even torture have been regular occupational hazards for Gertrude—the General Secretary of GAPWUZ—and her staff for many years.

Unfortunately, things have not gotten much better since the 2008 elections when President Mugabe refused to cede power to the democratically elected Morgan Tsvangirai, a former union leader himself. The resulting power-sharing agreement has left the two sides battling for control as the nation plummets deeper into unemployment and poverty. At least 90 percent of the populati0n is not part of formal workforce.

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Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

In this regular series, we profile advisors to the Nourishing the Planet project. This week, we feature Hans Herren, President of the Millennium Institute.

Name: Hans Herren

Affiliation: The Millennium Institute

Location: Arlington, VA, United States

Bio: Hans Herren is President of the Millennium Institute (MI). Prior to joining MI, he was Director-General of the International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, Kenya. He also served as director of the Africa Biological Control Center of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), in Benin.

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Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Wildlife conservation and sustainable farming practices are becoming increasing prevalent across sub-Saharan Africa (see Protecting Wildlife While Improving Food Security, Health, and Livelihoods, Helping Conserve Wildlife–and Agriculture–in Mozambique, and In Botswana, Cultivating an Interest in Agriculture and Conservation). Yet efforts to preserve elephants, rhinos, and other wildlife are difficult in countries plagued by political unrest and conflict.

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Cross posted form Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

In Accra, Ghana, most homes do not have indoor plumbing or sewage systems. Instead, households dispose of waste into the same ditches and streams that urban farmers use to irrigate the crops they sell at local markets. The use of wastewater on farms presents a significant health risk and has been banned by the government. But because many farmers don’t have access to clean sources of water, they lack other options for irrigating their crops.

In 2005, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a non-profit organization working in Asia and Africa to improve water and land management for farmers and the environment, received funding from several groups, including the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) initiative Challenge Program for Water and Food, to work with urban farmers in Ghana to develop improved farm wastewater management.

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Co-written with Dr. Jacob Wanyama and originally featured in the Mail & Guardian. Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

Maralal, Kenya, is mostly known for its wildlife. And as we made the seven hour, bumpy trek from Nairobi — half of it on unpaved roads — we saw our fair share of water buffaloes, rhinos, impala, and giraffes. But we weren’t here to go on safari. We were here to meet with a group of pastoralists — livestock keepers who had agreed to meet with us and talk about the challenges they face.

We met in the community primary school and it was humbling to see so many people — many wearing traditional Maasai clothing, brightly woven clothe, beads, elaborate earrings — come through the door to greet us.

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Crossposted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

Check out this great new regular feature for Basil Magazine from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet project:

Hello readers of Basil Magazine!

I am very excited to be a new contributor to Basil as I travel through sub-saharan Africa, sharing share with you some of the people, places, projects--and foods!-- I see along the way.

I'm currently a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and co-Project Director of State of World 2011: Nourishing the Planet. I am blogging everyday from Africa at www.nourishingtheplanet.com. I have an M.S. in Agriculture, Food and Environment from the School of Nutrition Science and Policy from Tufts University and I worked for 2 and a half years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic.

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Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

"We’ve got hundreds of local foods, almost 600 that we’ve categorized through our research," said Kristof Nordin in a January interview with Nourishing the Planet project co-Director, Danielle Nierenberg, at the permaculture project he runs in Malawi with his wife, Stacia (see also: Malawi’s Real Miracle). "But we are starving because we are only planting one crop: maize, which came originally from America."

Many efforts to combat hunger and drought across Africa emphasize boosting yields of staple crops such as maize, wheat, cassava, and rice, which can provide much-needed calories as well as income to millions of farmers. These staples, however, lack many essential micronutrients, including Vitamin A, thiamin, and niacin. That is why many communities rely on indigenous vegetables such as amaranth, dika, moringa, and baobab to add both nutrients and taste to staple foods. These vegetables are rich in vitamins and nutrients and are often naturally resistant to local pests and climatic fluctuations, making them an important tool in the fight against hunger and poverty.

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