Tag Archives: economics

Heifer Works Within the Doughnut

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Last week, Kate Raworth of Oxfam International published an Oxfam Discussion Paper, titled “A Safe and Just Space for Humanity: Can We Live Within the Doughnut?” In the video below, Raworth uses illustrations to help explain the concepts detailed in her paper. Watch it, then continue reading below about how Heifer’s work fits right into the doughnut.

Here’s the part that really resonated with me:

Between the social boundaries and the planetary boundaries lies an area shaped like a donut, which is both safe and just space for humanity. And if global economic development is socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable, it would bring humanity into this space and allow it to thrive here.

If you’re already familiar with Heifer’s work, I imagine you’ll agree: This sounds just like Heifer.

Our mission isn’t only to end hunger and poverty. It is also to care for the Earth. Our methods have proven to be both beneficial to our project participants and, at the very least, protective of the environment. We often go beyond protecting the environment when project communities live in landscapes in need of restoration.

To apply Raworth’s illustration to Heifer: Heifer works to bring our participants and their communities up to the “social foundation” line without crossing the “environmental ceiling.” It’s all in our 12 Cornerstones for Just and Sustainable Development, namely Sustainability and Self Reliance, Improved Animal Management, Nutrition and Income, Genuine Need and Justice, Improving the Environment, and Full Participation.

We know it’s possible to live within the doughnut, because we have helped our participants do it for the past 68 years.

Poor=Lazy?

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Greeks and Italians have been taking some blows lately as their economies crumble. Why can’t they be more like their wealthy, tidy northern neighbors in Germany and Holland, critics want to know. Fellow European states are putting pressure on the Mediterranean governments, suggesting that they can borrow money as long as their citizens work harder and save more.

But is laziness really to blame? Turns out the stereotype of the lazy Latins vs. the enterprising northern Europeans doesn’t hold up. Slate writer Matthew Yglesias pulled the numbers and found that Greek, Spanish and Italian workers all put in significantly more hours than the Germans and Dutch. “The truth is that countries aren’t rich because their people work hard. When people are poor, that’s when they work hard,” Yglesias wrote.

This simple truth extends beyond Europe’s borders, and it brought to mind how I feel every time I visit Heifer project sites and meet the people there. In Senegal last year I met a mother of four named Fatou Dione who wakes up before 6 a.m. every day to pound and cook millet for breakfast, fetch water, hunt for firewood, care for the family’s sheep and send the children off to school. She also works in the fields and cares for aging family members, responsibilities that keep her moving until after the sun sets. Fatou lives in a hut made of sticks and relies on her brother-in-law to send money when the family’s stores of millet run low.

I often think of Fatou when my morning routine goes awry and I’m late getting myself and my two boys out the door. Dirty diapers and temper tantrums are a hassle, but hot water pours automatically from my faucets, my refrigerator is stocked with food and the only animals I have to care for are a dog and a cat. Pretty easy stuff, really. I’m certain Fatou works harder and is more tired at the end of the day than I am, and still I have so much more. It’s humbling and eye-opening and it certainly confirms what my mother always told me, “Life isn’t fair.”

My mother also told me that we all get what we deserve in the end. I wish that was true, but after meeting Fatou and so many other clever and hard-working Heifer project participants around the world, I know for a fact it’s not. What you start with usually dictates what you’ll end up with, so let’s all count our blessings. At the same time, let’s work together to make sure brilliant, driven, loving people in places Heifer works have a decent shot at getting what they deserve.

Waste Not, Want Not: Stop Wasting Food

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Today is Blog Action Day 2011. It is also World Food Day. This year’s theme for Blog Action Day is Food. Bloggers all over the world are writing about this one theme, from their own unique perspective. To find out more, visit the Blog Action Day website. Read more of our Blog Action Day posts on Heifer Blog here.

Here’s my disclaimer: my family and I are just as guilty of accidentally letting food go to waste. Typically, it’s produce I’ve purchased from the farmer’s market with very good intentions (I know, I even wrote that blog post about how to stop wasting produce, for shame!). So, this lecture is directed to myself every bit as much as it is to you.

We, the Americans living in the United States, waste 55 million tons of food–40 percent of our food supply–every year. Worldwide, roughly one-third of the food produced is lost or goes to waste. That’s disgusting on several levels. Recently, a software company did some calculations and found that food waste is responsible for 135 million tons of greenhouse gasses each year. That’s 1,800 pounds per average family–400 pounds per individual–every year. That’s not the food we’re eating… 135 million tons of greenhouse gasses per year from food we throw out.

Photo by Dan Bazira

In developing countries, post-harvest food loss is the biggest culprit. Inadequate food storage, poor roads, etc. leads to food going to waste between the field and the plate. While this is a sad fact, especially considering the number of hungry people in developing countries (906 million), these are surmountable obstacles. In Uganda, Heifer participants are building small-scale grain storage containers to protect their harvests from spoilage. Roads can be built. Not only would such investments help cut down on food losses, they could also provide an incentive for farmers to increase their production. If I were a dairy farmer with new roads by which to transport my milk to a milk collection facility or my vegetables to market, I might start raising more livestock or sowing more seeds when I could afford to.

Photo from Flickr/superk8nyc. Creative Commons.

In industrialized countries, food waste comes after it’s hit the grocery store isles, our refrigerators and shelves, and even our plates. With food prices on the rise and 13 million people in the Horn of Africa literally starving, wasting food is an even bigger no-no than usual. Once your checkout at your local store or market, that food is yours. Yours to prepare. Yours to eat. Your responsibility.

How you and I cut down on our household food waste? Well, we can purchase less to begin with. Shop from a grocery list based on a weekly meal plan. We can follow some easy (though sometimes easier written than followed) directions on how to store fresh produce. We can, gasp, lower our standards. I’d hate for anyone to get sick off my advice, but I can tell you I frequently eat leftovers well after “they” tell you to throw them away, and I’m doing just fine. Have a toddler? They don’t know the difference between fresh crackers and stale! Cooked too much for dinner? Invite your neighbors over and make new friends.

Has your food gone bad, despite your efforts? Keep it out of the landfill by composting it. Or get some backyard chickens.

Cut back on greenhouse gas emissions and save some money. That researcher I mentioned above: he found that “if household food waste could be cut in half, a family of four could save $600 a year.” What could you do with $600? I’d suggest a water buffalo, a sheep, a llama, some tree seedlings and a flock of geese.

World Food Day: Food Prices–From Crisis to Stability

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Today is Blog Action Day 2011. It is also World Food Day. This year’s theme for Blog Action Day is Food. Bloggers all over the world are writing about this one theme, from their own unique perspective. To find out more, visit the Blog Action Day website. Read more of our Blog Action Day posts on Heifer Blog here.


Happy World Food Day, everyone.

When you have plenty, food is something to celebrate. For those who lack enough, however, it can be a daily struggle. Food security is defined by the World Health Organization as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.” Before Heifer enters the picture, our project participants are food insecure. When you’re food insecure, you might have enough food to feed your family breakfast and lunch, but not dinner. You might have enough food for your children, but not yourself. You might have enough food five days a week, but not seven; or during the harvest months, but not the thin months.

Food insecurity is scary, and there are many factors that contribute to the situation. A significant factor that has been getting a lot of attention lately is the rising cost of food. That’s the theme for this year’s World Food Day: Food Prices–From Crisis to Stability. Today we are called to “look seriously at what causes swings in food prices, and do what needs to be done to reduce their impact on the weakest members of global society.”

Those weakest members of society? Those are Heifer’s participants. At least, that’s one way to describe them before they receive their gifts of training and livestock. Our work can play a big role in helping families protect themselves against the negative impacts of volatile food prices. Because when you’re empowered to grow much of the food your family needs, you’re way less reliant on the global–and even local–food economy. That’s just as true here in the United States, but it’s strikingly more significant in developing countries, which account for 98 percent of the world’s 925 million hungry people in 2010.

What do you think? What else can be done to reduce the impact of rising food costs on the poor and hungry?

Today is also Blog Action Day, which has the appropriate theme of Food this year. Stay tuned here on Heifer Blog for a series of posts by some of our own Heifer staff with their thoughts on food.

Rising Food Prices: Starve or Sacrifice?

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As the global economy continues to change, food prices continue to climb. What does this mean for the average consumer? Do we sacrifice in other areas to continue to provide well-­­­­­balanced, nutritional food; or do we skimp to cut costs?

The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020 stated that higher agriculture commodity prices are here to stay.  Meats will rise 30 percent higher, cereals could average as much as 20 percent higher, and the impact on the poor in developing countries could be devastating.

“While higher prices are generally good news for farmers, the impact on the poor in developing countries who spend a high proportion of their income on food can be devastating,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría.
Action should focus in particular on smallholders in low-income food-deficit countries, he added.
This year will be the fifth year of high and volatile prices, which with slow production growth under high cost will have a detrimental effect on the American consumer pockets and health of those in developing countries.

But what is behind these continued rising prices, and how can we change it? The increase cannot be pinpointed to one thing, but is instead a result of a multitude of factors.  Weather and climate change, energy prices, exchange rates, growing demand, trade restrictions and simple speculation are some of the reasons we will see continued escalation in our food costs.

  
“Slower growth is expected for most crops, especially oilseeds and coarse grains,” they said in the report. “The global slowdown in projected yield improvements of important crops will continue to exert pressure on international prices.”

The Outlook does have a strategy for protecting the poor by adopting a risk management strategies plan. What else can we do? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation started a Small Farmers are the Answer Challenge, which focuses on how we can help teach others to become small famers to help fight against hunger and poverty.

What will you have to do when food prices start to climb higher: sacrifice or starve? Have you already had to make changes to the foods you eat to avoid higher grocery bills?

Share Your Ideas to Help Solve Global Food Crisis

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Have you watched this?

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Super powerful, right?
Did you know that Heifer International was started from the idea of one man? Dan West, Heifer’s founder, saw a problem and envisioned a solution. Over time, that idea evolved into a model that has helped 13.6 million families lift themselves out of hunger and poverty.
What if you had the next idea?
Dan West lived way before the Internet. Way before institutions like the World Bank asked the question: What’s YOUR Solution?

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Some of those ideas sound familiar? Access to technology. Reducing waste. Safety nets. Storage capabilities. Research and extension linkages. Empowerment of small-scale farmers. Increase food productivity.
These are things Heifer does. So what does this mean? It means we’re on the right track, but there is always room for new ideas. Head over to World Bank’s website, read through the ideas already posted, and post your own. Participate in their Open Forum: Food Crisis April 14-15. And post your ideas here!

Quinoa Craze Dents Access in Bolivia

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Bolivians have lived off the Andean plant quinoa for centuries, but recent “discovery” by nutrition-hungry American and European consumers has hurt access for the small farmers who produce it, says a recent article in the New York Times.

A chenopod related to species like beets and spinach, NASA scientists recently touted its exceptional balance of protein and amino acids as virtually unrivaled in the plant or animal kingdom for its life-sustaining nutrients.

The good news: Increased demand has helped raise farmers’ incomes in one of the hemisphere’s poorest countries. Bolivian laborers who had traveled to cities or to Argentina and Chile for paychecks are now able to return to work their land and make a fair living raising quinoa.

The bad news: Fewer Bolivians can now afford it, hastening their embrace of cheaper, processed foods and raising fears of malnutrition in a country that has long struggled with it.

President Evo Morales said he planned to make more than $10 million in loans available to quinoa producers, and health officials are incorporating the plant into foods supplied to thousands of pregnant and nursing women each month.

Marcelo Alvarez of Heifer Bolivia says that as prices increase, the indigenous people (Aymara and Quechua) who traditionally grew and consumed quinoa and others who used to eat it regularly now prefer rice and noodles.

Heifer Bolivia continues to work with its partner the Bolivian Center of Educational Research and Action in El Alto, Bolivia to educate urban children about the nutritional benefits of traditional foods such as quinoa over processed foods. Rising prices that discourage healthy eating make our work even more challenging.

“We work with parents, teachers and students,” says Nora Mengoa, the educational research center’s project coordinator. “We pass on the gift of knowledge; we try to change their eating habits which aren’t serving them now.”

Read more about Heifer projects in Bolivia in a previous World Ark article here.

Food Crisis in 2011?

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In a New York Times editorial, John Foley warns that too much money (i.e. governments printing more of it to help their economies recover) has the potential to cause a food crisis in 2011. Rising food prices make it even harder on those who already spend as much as half their income for meals.

He writes in the first paragraph:
Food prices globally are rising to dangerous levels. There is talk of a coming crisis, like the ones that produced riots around the world in 2008 and 1974. Many of the ingredients of a disaster are present, but governments can stop the problem before it causes too much damage.
For a look at how countries’ economic and trade policies can affect the poor, read the rest of the article here.

It’s Expensive Being Poor

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Photo by Geoff Bugbee

Poverty costs. The question is, how much? How much does it cost for a woman to walk a mile for water? How much does it cost to wait for the bus when you’re never sure it will even show up? How much does it cost to wait a long time for virtually all of the goods and services daily life requires?

These are the questions a group of students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs asked as they tried to determine a way to measure what development economists call the “poverty penalty,” which is basically a tax on being poor.
Read the students’ blog post on the Majority Markets blog for what will hopefully be the beginning of a provocative conversation.