Author Archives: Annie Bergman

About Annie Bergman

As Senior Writer for Heifer International, Annie Bergman is the primary travel writer for the nonprofit organization’s World Ark magazine. Bergman has interviewed survivors of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, beekeepers in Honduras, women’s groups in India and war widows in Kosovo in her four years at Heifer. Bergman received her bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma and a master’s degree in Australian Aboriginal Studies from the University of Melbourne in Australia. Her hobbies include hiking, golfing, cooking, reading and walking her dogs.

Climate Change and the Hungry

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In the last few years we’ve seen how the changing climate has affected vulnerable people and places. Famine was declared in Somalia last year after the annual rains failed. Millions more are on the brink of famine in the Sahel right now for similar reasons. Food prices jumped at the beginning of 2012 after an extremely cold winter in Europe drove up the price wheat and extreme heat in Southern Africa did the same for maize and other crops.

If these trends continue, it’s possible that the number of hungry will rise by 20% according to the World Health Organization. The numbers were announced at last week’s Rio+20 summit in Brazil. 

From the article: The WHO analysis shows that of the 495 million women and children under age 5 who are undernourished, 150 million live in Africa, 315 million in Asia and 30 million in Latin America and the Caribbean. It expects about 465 million more will live in developing countries by 2020, boosting food demand.

While it is important that those who need emergency aid receive it, news like this requires planning for the long term. Heifer International focuses on exactly that: long-term solutions that enable small farmers to be better prepared when crises hit.

Read our other posts on the Rio+20 Summit and why it is important to Heifer here.

 

 

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Milk Gone Bad?

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We all know the best way to tell if your expired milk has really soured is to open up the cap and take a not-so-large whiff.  But what if the carton changed color when it spoiled, saving your nose from sniffing rotten milk?  We may not be too far from that.

A recent article posted on Slate.com and included in their special food issue lays out the cutting edge technology that we can expect to see in food packaging. Don’t spend much time thinking about cutting edge food packaging technology?  Me, either, but it’s pretty cool…and kind of scary.

Take, for example, a sensor that can detect when protein begins breaking down that can be found on some seafood packages. Yep. That exists.  Or a box of grapefruit juice that actively works to make the juice not as bitter, using nanoparticles.  Here’s an excerpt from the article that describes the process:

A team of scientists led by Dr. Joseph Hotchkiss, director of the School of Packaging at Michigan State University, has been trying to use intelligent boxing to improve the taste of grapefruit juice. They’ve “impregnated” the polymers on the inside of grapefruit juice cartons with enzymes that unravel bitter citrus compounds. Basically, these enzymes saw sugar molecules off of the compounds, allowing them to float freely (and sweetly) in the liquid. But the enzymes themselves remain embedded in the carton’s inner lining, so they can’t end up in the newly sugary juice.

If you’re somewhat alarmed, I was too. Nanoparticles in my juice? But here’s the thing, this new kind of packaging doesn’t have to be added directly to the product in order to work.  Or so they say.

The article does mention that the FDA  doesn’t yet categorize nanoparticles as dangerous, but does indicate that they affect the “identity” of foods.

So what do you think?  Would you prefer a label that could talk to you, or do you prefer reading the nutrition information?

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Hot Off the Press: World Ark May Issue

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The latest edition of World Ark should be hitting mailboxes around the country this week, but don’t worry: You can get a jumpstart on reading right here.

In this issue we address the problem that too often hunger and poverty are overlooked in this land of plenty, and tell you howHeifer’s new projects in Appalachia and the Arkansas Delta are addressing these pressing problems. Read how Heifer is planting Seeds of Change in these regions.

Though we’ve just celebrated Mother’s Day, we put together a photo essay honoring Heifer mothers. In nearly each project we visit, mothers tell us how the  life-giving gifts and training from Heifer have allowed them to care for their children and families in ways they never before dreamed. You can see the slideshow and learn about just some of the remarkable women in our projects here.

In Ecuador, magazine contributor Jaman Matthews follows 20-year-old Cesar Guale Vasquez on his quest to return heirloom seeds to rural farmers. Read about the seed-saving project in Ecuador’s coastal plane that’s bringing local varieties of vegetables back to dinner tables there.

And sometimes, we’re overwhelmed by the giving spirit of our donors. That happened when we learned about a congregation in Joplin, Mo., who raised more than $5,000 for Heifer last year, despite losing their church to the deadly EF5 tornado that hit the town last year.

You’ll find all these articles and much more in this issue. Let us us know what your favorite parts of the magazine are in the comments.

 

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A Certain Style

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World Ark senior editor Austin Bailey and photographer Russ Powell are visiting Malawi this week to report on projects there.

In cities and villages, among old and young, the women of Malawi honor tradition by wearing the chitenje. This brightly colored swath of cotton comes in countless colors and patterns, but is worn in only two ways. Practically all women wrap them around their waists, with two magical tucks that keep them in place without buttons, zippers or snaps. Mothers in rural areas use a second chitenje to tie babies on their backs, freeing hands for hauling, cooking and other work.

In the capitol city of Lilongwe, professional women wear skirts and high-heeled shoes, but wrap zitenje over their suits when they leave the office. (Zitenje is the plural form for chitenje in the Chichewa language spoken in Central and Southern parts of the country.) Not only is the chitenje traditional, it’s also considered by many to be the only moral way for women in Malawi to dress, explained Grace Phili, a field officer for Heifer who often wears a chitenje over jeans when she travels over bumpy dirt roads to project sites by motorbike. Although Malawi is becoming more modern in terms of gender issues, many still believe women who shirk the traditional dress also shirk their morals. “In the villages, if you wear pants, people say, ‘She is a woman, but she wears the clothes of a man,’” Phili said.

Giving zitenje is considered very respectful and generous, and they’re the common gift at rural weddings. Many women in Malawi complement zitenge with a matching head wrap called a mpango. On special occasions, women wear the chitenje with matching mpango and blouse all made from the same cloth. Malawi’s new president, Joyce Banda, always wears a chitenge outfit with a matching wrap over her shoulder and mpango.

 

 

Watch Heifer Malawi field officer Grace Phili demonstrate wrapping the chitenje in the video below.

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Celebrate Earth Day At Heifer

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Here at Heifer International, we strive to make every day Earth Day. We’ve told you a couple of times this week about  what you can do to help celebrate this year’s Earth Day on Sunday.

If you haven’t yet figured out what to do, or if you’re looking for a fun way to get your whole family invovled in saving the Earth, we’ve gone one more suggestion for you: Come see us on the Heifer Campus and maybe even help us set a world record!

Earth Day 2012 from Rockaway Township Public Library

The Arkansas Earth Day Foundation is hosting the 2012 Earth Day Festival on Saturday, April 21, on our campus in downtown Little Rock from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visitors can learn fun ways to contribute to our environment’s continued health, and can enjoy music and activities celebrating the Earth we inhabit. The Festival includes booths and hands-on demonstrations showing visitors how to be earth-conscious by recycling and reusing whenever possible.

It wouldn’t be a Heifer event without some of our animals from the Heifer Ranch, either. The animals will be on hand to illustrate ways that food and income can be cultivated sustainably. Heifer Village will also be open, so visitors can see how they help end hunger and poverty in an Earth-friendly way.

Various nonprofits will collect household goods and e-waste including old cell phones and chargers, while Freecycle will collect unwanted items and let visitors bring them home.

And we need moms and dads for the Great Cloth Diaper Challenge. Arkansas parents join with others around the globe at 11 a.m. to try to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest simultaneous worldwide diaper change.

So if you’re in our area, come on down. We’re encouraging folks to leave the vehicle at home and use alternative transportation, like the bus, walking, biking or carpooling. Patrons are also encouraged to bring their own reusable shopping bags and refillable water bottles.

Those wanting more information can visit www.ArkansasEarthDay.org or contact Heifer Village at 501-907-COWS (2697) or heifervillageregistration@heifer.org.

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Crisis in the Sahel

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Though it hasn’t received much news coverage here in the United States, there’s another part of Africa facing a food crisis. This time it’s the Sahel region that stretches across the continent between the Sahara and the lusher areas to the south that’s feeling the effects of drought, rising food prices, and in some areas, conflict and locusts.

It is estimated that about 13 million people are in need after the rains failed last year,

Children share a mid-afternoon meal of millet porridge in Diarrere, Senegal.

prolonging a drought that has made it difficult for families to grow food in a place where the growing season is already very short. It remains to be seen what kind of rainy season the region will face this year.

Food prices also rose for the third time in three straight months in March, making it that much more difficult for families who have little to pay for the food that with which they would normally supplement their diets.

The U.S. has sent nearly 40,000 tons of sorghum to the region with it’s expected arrival at the end of the month. UNICEF is also working to raise awareness of the crisis, particularly through its social media channels. They’re right to point out that, like what happened in the Horn of Africa last year, this crisis is preventable.

In Senegal, Heifer has helped the people in this region manage the dry conditions for the past two years, and has prepared them for precisely the kind of situation the region is facing now. Heifer’s projects have equipped participants with a short-haired sheep specially suited to area’s heat, goats, pigs and seeds that can thrive even in the Sahel soil.

Participants are also spreading manure on the nutrient-depleted soils to replenish them, and planting acacia trees to provide shade and help the soil hold water and not blow away.

It’s a long-term solution for an acute problem, yes, but it’s providing people with the means to survive and thrive in changing climates and conditions.

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Have You Checked out World Ark?

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The latest issue of Heifer’s magazine World Ark came out a few weeks ago, but we’ve had so many other things going on with Social Justice Day, our International Women’s Day series, and updating you about our history of working in Uganda, that we forgot to tell you about the other great stories we have. Donna featured Roseline Jean Pierre last week, but Katya Cengel’s article on Haiti takes a closer look at our work there in villages around the island country, particularly with the coastal village of La Savane where Heifer has provided fishermen with boat motors so that Haitian fishermen can reach the fish populations outside the bay that has fallen victim to pollution and overfishing.Frank Bures also takes a look at how Kenyans are coping with the rising cost of living, while Dr. Stephen Smith also tackles what is driving the cost of food prices up, and the subsequent effects on the poor.

Take a look at our online edition for all other features like book reviews and donor stories, too. And be on the look out for our next issue, due out in May.

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A War Widow I’ll Never Forget

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Editor’s Note: A commitment to empower women is embedded in Heifer International’s core values for sustainable development. In honor of International Women’s Day on Thursday, March 8, this week we’re sharing the stories of Heifer participants who take the gifts of animals and training and run with them to extraordinary results for themselves and their communities. Through hard work and innovations, each woman secures her rightful place in the family, the marketplace and the world.
I’ll never forget Sadie Kameri. Never.
Sadie’s story affected me so deeply that I feared I’d never be able to adequately convey each emotion that I felt hearing her tell it. It’s so tragic, so haunting and yet so hopeful.
My hope is this video gives you an idea of how remarkable Sadie is—how remarkable all of the women of Kosovo are—and explains just why I’ll carry the war widows I met with me for the rest of my life.

For a fuller picture of Sadie’s life after the Kosovo war, read “Those Who Remain” in the Holiday 2009 edition of World Ark.

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Finding Strength in India

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Editor’s Note: A commitment to empower women is embedded in Heifer International’s core values for sustainable development. In honor of International Women’s Day on Thursday, March 8, this week we’re sharing the stories of Heifer participants who take the gifts of animals and training and run with them to extraordinary results for themselves and their communities. Through hard work and innovations, each woman secures her rightful place in the family, the marketplace and the world.
I met Mehrunnisa on a blisteringly hot day in April 2010. It was my second day interviewing Heifer project participants in rural Rajasthan, a state in northwestern India, and I was only just beginning to grasp what being a woman in this area of the world meant.
The Heifer India staff had prepared me well, so I knew what to expect when I talked to the women: That they were probably married at the impossibly young age of 13; that they have little to no status in their families, let alone in society; that they are refused education and are instead confined to their homes.
Mehrunnisa was no exception to the rule. At 29, she was responsible for caring for her three children, her husband, her husband’s parents and brother, their one water buffalo, the family’s wheat crop, and all other household duties.
At that age—my age, I kept thinking—she hadn’t considered a life outside the home. No woman is even allowed to consider that.
But Mehrunnisa was determined to change her future. Though wary about what her husband and family would say, she approached them about joining a Heifer project for women she had heard about from others. When they agreed to let her go, she never looked back.
Mehrunnisa dedicated as much time and energy into the group as she put into her family. She immediately took a loan from the group to pay off her family’s debts, attended all trainings and is now spearheading an effort to teach women sewing and embroidery skills, which would allow them to not only make more money, but to work outside their homes.
I knew I’d hear amazing stories from my time in India, but I never expected that a woman my age could teach me more about strength and determination that I hadn’t already learned. I was wrong.

Read more about the women in Mehrunnisa’s self-help group in the Fall 2010 issue of World Ark.

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Poverty on the Decline? World Bank says ‘Yes’

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For the first time since 1981, poverty has declined in all six regions of the developing world, according to a new report released by the World Bank on Wednesday. The World Bank defines poverty as living on less than $1.25 a day.


Photo by Russell Powell,
courtesy of Heifer International

The greatest strides were seen in East Asia where 14 percent of the population is currently living in poverty. That’s down from more than 77 percent in the early 1980s. Similarly, poverty is at an all-time low in South Asia at 36 percent, and in sub-Saharan Africa less than half the population is now characterized as impoverished.


The World Bank surveyed households in the regions of East Asia and Pacific, China, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

This is great news, but it’s also confusing. How is it that the number of people living with hunger—a typical outcome of poverty—has held steady at about 1 billion people? That can be attributed to the rise in the world’s population.

This reaffirms the necessity to work with smallholder farmers to increase food production in the next few years. Heifer has a proven model that can dramatically enhance agricultural production to benefit all of us, and you can bet we’ll be working harder and faster to bring those numbers down even farther.

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