Today the world’s population hit 7 billion. That’s 7 billion humans who need food and water to survive, let alone thrive.
I live in Little Rock, a small southern city whose metro area population is less than 700,000. It’s really hard for me to imagine what 7 billion people means on a day-to-day basis.
This video from National Geographic helps put 7 billion into perspective.
It really is about balance, not space. Inequity in the distribution and use of the world’s resources is the problem. The only way to see improvements in the quality of life for the global population will be through a more equitable distribution of resources (food, water, money, power, and so on). At Heifer, we approach this problem in two ways. First, we help redistribute financial resources. We take the generous gifts of our donors and turn them into livestock, seeds, equipment, training and so on. Second, we help our participants–largely the rural poor–make the absolute best use of what resources they do have.
Earlier this year, Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food reported that sustainable, agroecological farming will be the answer to feeding the expected 9 billion people to live on our planet in 2050. A post on Impatient Optimists, the blog of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, stated:
At the Foundation, we believe that smallholder-based productivity growth is the most leveraged pathway by which we can address poverty reduction. Of the 1.4 billion people who live in extreme poverty and almost 1 billion are estimated to be chronically undernourished, approximately three quarters live in rural areas; and an overwhelming majority of these poor participate in agriculture. By focusing on smallholders’ productivity we address not only poverty but also undernutrition.
Supporting smallholder farmers engaged in sustainable agriculture is what we do at Heifer. And we have plans to do this even bigger and with greater impact. But it’s not enough. There have to be more of us working to end hunger and poverty while protecting the Earth. Doing nothing is unacceptable. Doing nothing leads to 15 million children dying every year from hunger. Doing nothing leaves children who survive starvation grossly stunted.
7 billion people aren’t the problem.
We are the solution.
Prince Charles is a firm supporter of small-scale, sustainable farming.
"Having myself tried to farm as sustainably as possible for some twenty-six years in England, which is not as long as other people here I know, I certainly know of plenty of current evidence that adopting an approach which mirrors the miraculous ingenuity of Nature can produce surprisingly high yields of a wide range of vegetables, arable crops, beef, lamb and milk. And yet we are told ceaselessly that sustainable or organic agriculture cannot feed the world. I find this claim very hard to understand. Especially when you consider the findings of an impeccably well-researched International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, conducted in 2008 by the U.N. I am very pleased, by the way, to see that the co-chair of that report, Professor Hans Herren, will be taking part in the International Panel discussion towards the end of the conference. His report drew on evidence from more than 400 scientists worldwide and concluded that small-scale, family-based farming systems, adopting so-called agro-ecological approaches, were among the most productive systems in developing countries. This was a major study and a very explicit statement. And yet, for some strange reason, the conclusions of this exhaustive report seem to have vanished without trace.
This is the heart of the problem, it seems to me – why it is that an industrialized system, deeply dependent on fossil fuels and chemical treatments, is promoted as viable, while a much less damaging one is rubbished and condemned as unfit for purpose. The reasons lie in the anomalies that exist behind the scenes."
http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/speechesandarticles/a_speech_by_hrh_the_prince_of_wales_to_the_future_for_food_c_848967946.html
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