Category Archives: News

ACIAR’s forestry project FST/2011/076, which is undertaking research on enhancing agroforestry and community forestry systems in Nepal, has been conducting its activities for the past 19 months and already we are beginning to see some short term impacts. Many farmers in the project sites have indicated that they need access to better germplasm if they are to improve their agroforestry systems as the preferred tree species are not readily available.

Edwin Cedamon, a project scientist from the University of Adelaide, has been working with his Nepali colleagues to train farmers in how to establish their own small nurseries. Edwin, who originally came from the Philippines, undertook postgraduate study in Australia with the support of ACIAR’s John Allwright Fellowship scheme while he was working on an ASEM project in the Philippines. Edwin has introduced the raised nursery bed technology that was used in the ASEM project in the Philippines to farmers in Nepal. These nursery beds are easy for farmers to construct from locally available materials and they have the advantage over the traditional ground based nursery beds in that the plants don’t become waterlogged and the root systems are “air pruned”.

At one of the project sites at Chaubas in Kabhre Palanchok district, the Australian Government supported the establishment of a community sawmill in the mid 1990s. This sawmill draws its timber from five community forests, that were also established with the support of Australian aid. It operated successfully for a number of years and the local community forestry user groups that operated the sawmill used it to generate the funds required to build a new school in the village. However, it closed in 2011 as a result of disputes between the various community forest user groups and bureaucratic problems associated with approvals to harvest timber from the community forests.

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The Minister of Environment, Mrs Laurentia Mallam, has lauded the activities of the National Agency for Great Green Wall (NAGGW) for its efforts, including provision of improved seedlings to communities affected by desertification.

Mallam who made the commendation at a one-day Stakeholders forum organised by NAGGW in Katsina state recently, said that the efforts of the Agency through activities such as shelterbelt development, provision of alternative cooking devices to the rural communities, provision of water to the communities within the GGW corridor, Development and management of orchards and other lively activities,

In a statement issued by Larai Daze, Press Officer, NAGGW, the Minister who was represented by Mr Ado Saminu, coordinator of the Afforestation Programme Coordinating Unit (APCU) Kano, said that the forum with its composition of researchers, farmers, extension workers, policy makers from the three tiers of Government and other relevant interest groups from commerce and industries makes it an interesting and special forum.

She said the launching provides opportunities for all stakeholders to explore ways of sustaining the GGW programme, stressing that collaboration needs to be strengthened, information shared widely and activities to be done frequently to realize synergies from the investments both from individuals. According to her, these will address land degradation, provide job opportunities and generally enhance the economic activities of the affected communities.

The Minister said the GGW programme is a holistic approach been undertaking by the present administration of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in which stakeholders are encouraged to contribute their own quota through popular participation. She urged the forum to be all participative, and come up with approaches for the betterment of the Nigerian populace.

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Rwanda is battling a decisive war of choosing between its increasing population and draining natural resources. The country has endured massive deforestation, depletion of bio-diversity, erosion, landslides, pollution of waterways and degradation of fragile ecosystems such as swamps and wetlands.

To tame the situation, the government has put in place policies for environmental conservation aimed at propelling the country’s green growth for the next five years. While speaking at the Climate Change panel at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, President Paul Kagame said, “As we look forward to development, we are not making a choice between environment and prosperity, but rather how do we combine both because one supports the other.”

For example, 30,739,957 trees were planted in 2014 as part of agro-forestry and restoring ecosystems. Rwanda, by 2018, aims to have 30% of its surface area covered by forests, up from 28.8% in 2014.

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Every year, Rwanda will plant trees on 8,150 hectares to achieve that target. This year the country launched the Fund for the Environment and Climate Change, a groundbreaking, biggest of its kind initiative in Africa.

The second edition of the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture (GFIA) is set to take place in Abu Dhabi from March 9-11, 2015. Held under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE, Minister of Presidential Affairs and Chairman of Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority and in strategic partnership with the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA), the exhibition and conference will feature more than 300 next-generation agricultural solutions that could shape the future of sustainable farming around the world.

With global policy makers and scientists tasked with identifying innovative ways to feed a population of more than nine billion people by 2050, GFIA will aim to accelerate the development of solutions that meet the world’s pressing challenges.

GFIA will bring together participants from the entire agricultural value-chain – from agribusiness and academia to policy and investment – to witness more than 400 presentations of game-changing ideas with the potential to fundamentally change the way food is produced, processed, stored, distributed and consumed.

“As the world looks to support sustainable economic and social development into the 21st century and beyond, the solutions we identify to our food and water security challenges today will define the future of our nations,” said Mohamed Jalal Al Rayssi, Chairman of the Organising Committee, Director of Communication and Community Service at Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority.

“Furthermore, with climate-smart food production being a critical factor for the UAE and other water-constrained parts of the MENA region. Abu Dhabi is strongly committed to driving the global dialogue on food security and climate resilience and this event reinforces that commitment. We look forward to welcoming some of the world’s leading experts in this field.”

The inaugural Global Climate-Smart Agriculture Summit will serve as key element of the 2015 event. The summit has been developed under the guidance of the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture launched during the UN Climate Summit in New York in September 2014. Climate-Smart Agriculture is a strategic farming approach designed to raise agricultural productivity whilst mitigating the effects of climate change.

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If the world goes on with business as usual, there’s not going to be enough food to feed everyone by 2050. A lot of things would have to change.

And a lot of things should change! Currently, the daily effort to satisfy the collective appetite of humanity is causing deforestation, erosion, extinction, and massive release of greenhouse gases. In changing how it feeds itself, humankind can drive down poverty, sequester greenhouse gas, conserve wild environments, and put organic matter back into the soil. All of that is plausibly within reach.

Let’s start with population. If we can’t get a handle on our swelling numbers, everything else is moot. So what would make human population level off, or even fall? There are always political measures — like China’s one-child policy — but laws like that are hard to pass and even harder to enforce. They restrict freedom while producing terrible unintended consequences — like families getting rid of girls.

There’s another option that actually works better: Improve the lives of poor women and children.

“If you want parents to make the choice to reduce their number of offspring, there’s no better way than making sure those offspring survive,” said Joel Cohen, author of the magisterial book How Many People Can the Earth Support? “There’s no example of decline in fertility that has not been preceded by a decline in child mortality that I know of.”

This is counterintuitive. But there is abundant evidence of this pattern all over the world, regardless of religion. Where children die and women are repressed, population booms. Where children thrive, and women are empowered, population growth stops.

As sustainable agriculture expert Gordon Conway writes in his book, One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?:

A popular misconception is that providing the developing countries with more food will serve to increase populations; in other words, it is a self-defeating policy. The more food women have, the more children they will have and the greater will be their children’s survival, leading to population growth, so goes the argument. However, the experience of the demographic transition described above suggests the opposite. As people become more prosperous, which includes being better fed and having lower child mortality, the fewer children women want. Providing they then have access to family planning methods, the fertility rates will drop and the population will cease to grow.

To control our impact on the environment, we have to stop growing. A measure of freedom and security for women and children is a precondition to ending population growth. The key factor connecting child mortality and lack of women’s rights is poverty. Therefore, environmental efforts have to be, first and foremost, campaigns for social justice.

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Australian Acacias – Bringing food to the hungryAustralian acacias have evolved to grow in a wide range of environments, including the driest of dry areas. Due to the lack of large herbivores in Australia as there is in Africa, many of these species have not developed techniques such as seed toxicity, bitterness or elaborate thorns to protect themselves from browsing. As a result many of these species produce an abundance of edible seeds, that can provide a source of food during the hungry months of the dry seasons.

Over the last 10 years or more, World Vision Australia has been working with partners to test and introduce such species to highly food insecure areas of Niger and Ethiopia, and to develop food products that can supplement traditional ingredients in lean periods. These endeavours have had increasing success, with new commercial products now available on the market, and new industries emerging, based on these Edible Acacias.

These species are also particularly suited to EverGreen Agriculture systems, bringing shade and organic matter to very marginal cropping land, while also providing a source of fodder and firewood as well as food for farming families

Radio National in Australia, recently covered these discoveries and the work that Food Security and Climate Change team at World Vision Australia are doing to take these successes around the world.

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