Category Archives: Weekly Article Spotlight

Weekly Article Roundup: Creating a Commitment for Food Security

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As an organization, we are committed to working to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth. This also includes committing to providing a long-term sustainable solution for food security to our projects worldwide.

In the United States, we’re working in the Delta and Appalachia to provide resources and training for farmers to begin providing for their family and community. Take a look at these articles regarding our Seeds of Change project and poverty in the U.S.

We are also excited to hear President Obama and the G8 commitment to food security. Heifer CEO, Pierre Ferrari wrote a post today regarding how we welcome their announcement today that brings private and public sectors together to make a difference in Africa.

Roger Thurow, senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global affairs wrote a post on how the benefit to reaching women farmers on HuffPost Impact. 

To follow along to the G8 summit, check out the Global Agriculture Development Initiative here, or follow on Twitter with hashtag #GlobalAg. 

 

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Weekend Article RoundUp

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One of my favorite parts about Friday is writing the Weekend Article Roundup blog. It allows me the time to re-read the blog articles from the past week to see the great work everyone at Heifer is doing. This week we had 70 purebred cows land in Romania to begin projects in central and western regions, a Heifer staff service day in Hughes, Arkansas, and discussed more about biogas which is used to help reduce the demand for fossil fuel. 

Other blogs to highlight this week:
If you’ve read all the Heifer blogs this week, then are are some other stories we’ve been reading around the office:

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Weekend Article Roundup

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(Screen shot of Heifer’s catalog on Catalog Spree)

It’s turning fall at Heifer Headquarters which means that our busy holiday season is quickly approaching. This year we are happy to team up with Catalog Spree to put our Most Important Gift Catalog on their iPad app. This makes searching and shopping for the perfect present even easier!

We’ve had all of our Heifer Country Directors in this week at HQ and were able to get everyone together for a quick picture. We are so grateful for all of their hard work and dedication to our mission. Meet them here. 

Here are a couple of items in case you missed them on our blog this week:

Here are a couple of articles we’ve been reading around the office:
So what have you been reading this week?
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Weekly Article Roundup: Preparing for World Food Day 2011

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Maegan’s taking a much needed mini-vacation, so it’s Brooke here with your Weekly Article Roundup.

I’d like to use this Roundup to prepare us for World Food Day, which is Sunday.

This year’s topic for World Food Day is Food Prices–From Crisis to Stability. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations wants us to consider what causes major swings in food prices and what can be done to reduce the impact of food prices on the poor and hungry in the world.
We posted about a New York Times editorial back in December 2010 warning of a food crisis in 2011. It’s terribly unfortunate that this prediction has come true. Rising food prices has been a significant factor in the famine in East Africa.
Rising food prices is a complicated situation, and it’s happening over much of the world. In Bolivia, the price for quinoa–an extremely nutritious crop grown and consumed in Bolivia for centuries–has risen to a price many Bolivians can’t afford. The cause: the increased demand for quinoa in the United States and Europe. The effects: poor Bolivians are eating cheaper, less nutritious foods instead.
In June this year, Maegan wrote about the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020 and asked us what changes we’ve had to make in our own lives to avoid higher grocery bills. 
Rising food prices aren’t just affecting the poor in developing countries. Families in the United States are being hit by higher grocery bills. Even Sesame Street is tackling food insecurity.
And if you need a reminder of why we need to work to stabilize food prices–so children and families won’t starve–you can go back to this video and see for yourself. We must act now; we must act fast; we must act big.
In addition to Sunday being World Food Day, it’s also Blog Action Day 2011, which has a complimentary theme of Food. Stay tuned for a series of posts from Heifer staff on topics related to food on Sunday in honor and celebration of the day.
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Weekend Article Roundup

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We have had some exciting news this week at Heifer. We’ve announced our commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting to help 20,250 families in Haiti increase their income with livestock and agriculture training. In light of this news, we’ve also been discussing some of our current work in Haiti on our blog.

As we discussed in last week’s U.S. poverty blog, 1 in 6 Americans are living in poverty. This week, the AP released an interactive map that shows how hard the South has been hit by poverty in the past 30 years.

While I was reading about poverty in America, I came across this Living Wage Calculator that shows how much an individual must earn to support his or her family. The official poverty level income last year was $22,314 for a family of four. If you check out the Living Wage Calculator, you’ll see in Little Rock, Arkansas (where Heifer headquarters is located) the annual income is around $55,028 for a family of four.

A couple of interesting reads over your weekend:

  • Big into social media? Then you might find this list of twenty Twitter users discussing the debate of global development interesting. 
  • Heifer supporter, Nicholas D. Kristof, wrote an article in the New York Times SundayReview about the drought and famine from his recent trip to a refugee camp in Kenya. I don’t want to say too much about his article, but have a tissue ready. 

After you take a look at the articles mentioned above let us know your thoughts in the comment section.

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Weekend Article Roundup

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Heifer’s mission is to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth. This week’s articles reflect the our mission by showing that food security and poverty are major topics of discussion. 


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Weekly Article Roundup

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Even though it’s been a short week at Heifer headquarters due to Labor Day on Monday, it has been a very busy one. This week we have our COO, Steve Denne, along with our Vice President of Central and Eastern Europe, Pietro Turilli, visiting Armenia and then heading to Georgia. 

This week we also celebrated International Literacy Day. As an organization that relies heavily on training and education for the success of our projects we are took part in the observance of the day that calls attention to the 780 million adults who do not know how to read or write.
We’ve also been reading some of our articles from the fall Work Ark magazine that is now available online. There are some great stories about longtime Heifer leader, Jo Luck ,who just bid farewell after 22 years of service. Did you know that there are more than 1,700 species of insects that are edible, and plentiful throughout the world? Read how you can add some extra crunch to your lunch.

Here are some external stories we’ve been passing around the office this week: 
Tell us in the comment section, what have you been reading?
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Weekly Article Roundup

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Before I roundup this week’s articles, I want to highlight a couple of things on the blog this week. If you’ve been keeping up, you’ve probably been reading some of Brooke’s stories about how Heifer is working with fair trade banana growers. Though I work at Heifer, it’s always fascinating to see the different ways we help people lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. It’s also very inspiring. 

We also mentioned this week about the flooding and mudslides that wiped out homes, animal shelters and livestock for 121 Heifer-supported families in eastern Uganda this week. We are happy to report that none of our project participants were hurt. 
Below are some articles that we passed around the office. If you’ve checked any of these out or have anything we missed, let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. 

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Weekly Article Roundup

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If you’ve been keeping up with the Heifer blog this week you’ve seen a lot of stories on Brooke’s recent trip to Peru and Ecuador where it looks like they’ve had a great time visiting projects. She’s shared stories about Lucio and his alpacas, agroecological fairs in Ecuador and videos from our Heifer CEO, Pierre Ferrari. Of course we’ve also shared information on how to help small farmers, how the ladies of the group of Nueva Luz are working together in Honduras to lift themselves out of poverty and the recent update from the FAO regarding the crisis in the Horn of Africa. 
Those alone are some great stories to catch up on if you haven’t had a chance to read them. If you’ve already read them, then take a look at some of the stories we’ve been passing around the office below and let us know in the comment section what you’ve been reading:
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    Weekly Article Roundup

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    We’ve been busy these past couple of weeks discussing the famine and drought in the Horn of Africa on the Heifer blog. This week, along with the drought discussion, we’ve also been reading and following the topic of child poverty in the United States. We’ve done a recap on the Annie E. Casey Foundation report which came out this week and a dove a little deeper into the discussion of child poverty in the U.S.
    Here are some of the stories we’ve been passing around about famine and drought in the Horn of Africa: 
     The Annie E. Casey Foundation report, which came out this past week, found the following: 
    • Poverty has increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009
    • 14.7 million children were poor in 2009
    • 5.3 million children have been affected by foreclosure
    • 1 in 5 children in the U.S. live in poverty 
     So what are your thoughts? The famine and drought in Africa, the significant child poverty numbers in the U.S., share your thoughts with us in the comment section.
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    Weekly Article Roundup

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    I’m always surprised when it’s Friday here at Heifer. I guess we are so busy throughout the days and weeks, Fridays seem to sneak up on me. Last week’s weekly article roundup blog was focused on the famine in Somalia and the devistation that the country and people are facing from the drought in the Horn of Africa. 

    Sadly, the famine and drought isn’t over yet. Here are some articles that we’ve been reading around the office dealing with the devastation the Horn of Africa is facing:
    Of course, that’s not all we are reading about this week. There were also a lot of articles about food stamps and the obesity epidemic in the U.S.:
    So that’s what we’ve been reading around the Heifer office. What have you been reading? 
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