Tag Archives: scale

Yes! Invest in Agricultural Research to Feed the World

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Photo by Dave Anderson
Isaya and Restituta Mlewa at their Tanzanian organic farm.

Bill Gates’ 2012 annual letter “is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency.”

In an interview with the U.K.’s MSN news, Gates explains that his hope for the letter is that it “helps people connect to the choice we all have to make. Relatively small investments changed the future for hundreds of millions of small farm families. The choice now is this: Do we continue those investments so that the 1 billion people who remain poor benefit? Or do we tolerate a world in which one in seven people is undernourished, stunted and in danger of starving to death?

“In times of tight budgets, we have to pick our priorities,” Gates continues. “It’s clear that in this particular time, we’re in danger of deciding that aid to the poorest is not one of them. I am confident, however, that if people understand what their aid has already accomplished—and its potential to accomplish so much more—they’ll insist on doing more, not less. That is why I wrote my letter.”

At Heifer, our supporters, donors, staff members and participants around the world say Amen! and pass the tomatoes to spreading the gospel on how small investments (in our case heifers, goats, bees or tree seedlings), can stop hunger in the short-term and create sustainable income in the long-term. Every day we see investments in small farm families empower them beyond subsistence to create a chain of self-sufficiency that lifts up entire communities.

Heifer works with the Gates Foundation on the East Africa Dairy Development project that not only connects dairy farmers to markets, but links public and private interests including banks and investors, to create a growing local economy based on agriculture.

In his letter, Gates emphasizes not only innovations in agricultural production, but also in creative partnerships to better feed the world. “I am excited because innovative partnerships that capitalize on the comparative advantages of all these players can accelerate progress, speeding the transition beyond aid for many poor countries.”

Heifer shares similar goals with the Gates Foundation, including a focus on investing in women, preserving land for future generations and developing innovations in the field that engage the people we are trying to help in making the best decisions for their land, culture, sustainability and environment.

Isaya and Restituta Mlewa, shown above, and featured in this World Ark magazine article, are proof that participants have innovations of their own to add. From the gift of one dairy cow and Heifer training in dairy and organic farming, the couple came up with their own systems using animal and plant waste that are now an example for the thousands of farmers they have trained across Africa.

In Nepal, the Heifer project community of Shaktikhor, through a Farmer Field School, did their own research into feed varieties and care that improved the health and increased the weight of goats throughout the community. Their innovations were shared and picked up by other Heifer project communities in Nepal.

At a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today, Gates said “innovations in crop science, access to information for farmers and new models of cooperation between governments and private enterprises are some of the developments that can improve global food security,” he said. “I believe the opportunity to double or even triple (food) productivity is there.”

Join the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Heifer International in promoting the value of investments in agriculture around the world to end hunger and poverty.

Heifer Launches New Project in Nepal

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There’s some exciting news coming from Nepal. Tomorrow, Friday, Heifer will formally launch a new $23.8 million project there, helping families band together to emerge from hunger and poverty.


Thuli Maya Lama, 45, of Juretthhum, Nepal.
This project will work in 28 districts to build up goat and dairy enterprises over the course of five years. Demand for these products is high in Nepal, but the country depends on imports to satisfy the need. By strengthening local production, Heifer hopes to reduce the number of goats being imported into Nepalby about 30 percent by the year 2016, and reduce milk imports by 10 percent.

This is an expansion of Heifer’s work helping thousands of Nepalese people move from vulnerability to self-reliance. The project aims to teach families how to produce more meat and milk by managing their animals more carefully. Then, Heifer plans to help participants forge trade alliances. By forming community groups and cooperatives, farmers can better connect with buyers.

The Nepal project will employ Heifer’s unique holistic training system to empower its participants for the long term. In addition to learning how to properly care for their animals, participants will be educated in areas like money management, gender equality, literacy, community collaboration and entrepreneurship.

With that foundation, small-scale farmers can not only feed their ownfamilies, but also work together to find larger markets for more dairy products.

Heifer International has worked in Nepal since 1977 to reduce poverty and build sustainable family enterprises with animals like sheep, goats, ducks and water buffalo. Now Heifer is confident that in areas of Nepal with dire poverty, its new goat and dairy project can create transformative and lasting change.

Heifer Staff in Busan to Talk Aid Effectiveness

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The Fourth Level High Forum on Aid Effectiveness is taking place this week in Busan, Korea. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and delegates from non-governmental organizations around the globe are among the participants.

HLF-4: Building a new global partnership for effective development from BusanHLF4 on Vimeo.

Heifer International has been represented at the forum by our Senior Director of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Rienzzie Kern. Kern presented examples of Heifer’s work and outlined key lessons, opportunities and challenges.

Kern said:

Development professionals from around the world have gathered in Busan to consider ways and means to deliver development aid more effectively. The intent is to ensure that every dollar spent is yielding the desired results for the poor of the world. This is particularly important given the continued increase in the number of poor and hungry in our world. The group consists of ministers, heads of large donor agencies, delegates from nonprofit organizations and members of grassroots movements. Heifer was present to share its experiences in scaling up its program in partnership with the private sector. There is much thought now given to the potential that could arise if nonprofits partner with the private sector to more effectively build on synergies to feed the world.

One Year In, Heifer CEO Makes a Splash

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When Pierre Ferrari was named Heifer International’s President and CEO on October 28, 2011, he brought with him big dreams. After one year, we’re seeing the results of Ferrari’s vision: changes at Heifer that will help feed thousands more hungry families worldwide.

Right now, Ferrari says, the global food system is struggling to feed a rapidly growing population. “And yet,” he says, “there are big opportunities right now for our partners, the smallholder farmers.”


Photo by: Geoff Oliver Bugbee

In their search for a CEO to replace renowned humanitarian Jo Luck, Heifer’s board found the right blend of experience and passion in Pierre Ferrari.

In his first year as head of Heifer, Ferrari has implemented three important strategies set by its board of directors. The most ambitious one is to expand Heifer’s projects in developing countries. In an effort to feed more hungry people around the globe, Heifer will now increase the size of its programs by an order of magnitude, focusing on areas with the most need.

“We as an institution need to lead what has been called the livestock revolution,” says Ferrari. “We must reach a rapidly growing group of small farmers, who are mostly women, to create the surplus needed to feed the world.”

Ferrari also intends Heifer to lead the way in use of technology to fight poverty. Improved technology, like cell phone connectivity, can empower people in new ways and make Heifer’s work even more impactful.

Dramatically enlarging our programs, though, means some real challenges for Heifer International. In order to fund larger projects, Ferrari is pursuing more diverse revenue streams, including foundation and governmental grants.

Photo by: Geoff Oliver Bugbee

“The G8, the G2O, the Gates Foundation, and others have all rediscovered the critical importance of agriculture and are promising to do more for the small farmers,” Ferrari says. “From our point of view, it’s about time!”

The third of Ferrari’s priorities, and maybe the most difficult to manage, is to bring all the organization’s systems around the world into alignment. As a global institution, Heifer has seen its processes grow complex. Now, the website management, human resources, planning and finance systems are being streamlined and strengthened. Ferrari says these changes will let Heifer grow while still being flexible and transparent to donors, and maintaining the high-quality work Heifer is known for.

These new priorities – to work with more families than ever before, and to secure the funding and structure to work effectively with these people – are all critical to Heifer’s mission: to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth. Pierre Ferrari is leading the charge to turn Heifer International into a leader in the development community.

“This has been one of the most fulfilling years of my life,” says Ferrari. “None of us could’ve predicted what we’ve accomplished in such a short time.”

How Heifer is Helping the World Feed Itself

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Earlier today I posted about a Heifer project participant being included in The Economist’s report, The 9 billion-people question: A special report on feeding the world. And if you’re keyed in to media coverage of sustainable agriculture, you’ve probably seen the conversation around the web on the United Nations Report, Agroecology and the Right to Food (Mark Bittman has written about it on the New York Times Opinionator blog, and Paula Crossfield for Huffington Post, to name a couple).
Both reports look at the seemingly impossible challenge of feeding all 9 billion people who are estimated to be living on Earth by 2050, and they offer different perspectives. Will we feed the world by investing in the highest-yielding crop or livestock species? Or by investing in agroecology? (Heifer has been practicing agroecology all over the world since the mid 1980s and established an Agroecology Initiative in 2000.)
I worry, though, that the theme of “feeding the world” diverts our attention from the local, on-the-ground work that needs to be done. Heifer takes on the task of ending hunger and poverty with this sort of community approach, and it’s an approach that we’ve proven works.
Ours is a bottom-up approach. We work with the very poor to help them rebuild assets and develop agriculturally and economically active livelihoods. We build strong community groups where people work together to share their limited resources and to plan their vision of a better life. At this stage, much training takes place. Participants learn improved ways to tend animals, how to best use animal by-products, water management and erosion control practices, and often even improved literacy and leadership skills.
A transformation process begins to happen within the community when the members realize that improvements in knowledge lead to improvements in health, income, relationships and eventually to their values. We call this a holistic transformation.
Once this transformation is underway, the community uses their knowledge to impact the policies, systems and practices that impact their surroundings (both societal and environmental). Community empowerment at the grassroots level can lead to changes in infrastructure to help build local commerce–roads, electricity, commodity storage and transportation, as well as market associations and structures.
We’ve seen our model work again and again, in all corners of the world (and even in our own backyard). Our challenge now is to ratchet up this model so we can begin to see our impacts on a larger scale, as we have with our East Africa Dairy Development Project. As communities begin to feed themselves, international hunger statistics will begin to come down. The need for wealthy countries to ship commodities to poor countries will decrease–countries will be growing their own food.
Left: Bolivia (photo by Geoff Bugbee), Top: Cambodia (photo by Matt Bradley)
Botton: Armenia (photo by Russ Powell), Right: Zambia (photo by Jake Lyell
And then the question of whether conventional agriculture is more productive or if sustainable/organic/agroecological agriculture is better will become a non-issue.
Can we do it alone? Of course not. We need help from individuals like you, from partner nonprofits and non-government organizations, and from governments–wealthy and poor alike.

Heifer Nepal: How Far Can We Go To End Hunger and Poverty?

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What if Heifer International could improve the lives of tens of thousands of families in one country where 65% of the population is considered to be living in poverty (living on less than $2 a day)? What if there were a development model built on deep, emotional and powerful human values that could unite once-struggling individuals into communities, turn them into donors, and grow the most successful development model the world has ever seen?
What if I told you all of the above is already happening in Nepal? Would you believe me? What would it take to convince you? Heifer CEO Pierre Ferrari, in Nepal this week with Mahendra Lohani, vice president for Asia/South Pacific programs, met with the Heifer Nepal staff on Tuesday to set the framework for project visits to remote areas of Nepal where Heifer’s success has so startled Nepali government officials they are using Heifer’s model as their own.
Lohani, who was the first country director for Heifer Nepal in its infancy in 1993, this week will show Ferrari projects across Nepal with the potential to reach perhaps hundreds of thousands more families. Believe it? You should. Ferrari’s focus, as it has been since he became CEO just a few months ago, is to thoughtfully take Heifer’s success to a greater scale, with greater speed, while keeping a clear focus on the context of Heifer’s vision. He didn’t say it would be easy, but he does see the potential is there.
“Nepal is the example of how successful Heifer’s model is,” Ferrari said at a meeting at Heifer Nepal’s home office in Kathmandu. “Why do many of our projects serve 100 or fewer families?” he asked. “What about the other 900 or 99,000 families we could be helping?”
Country Director Shubh Mahato and Senior Program Manager Neena Joshi and other staff members shared the triumphs and challenges of a powerful, cutting-edge program with one goal: To lead communities to self-sufficiency within a few short years.
How do we work better and faster to achieve that? Ferrari also asked. He hopes to find out more on project visits this week. Check back in as we share with you the tough questions being asked and reality of our work in the field through blog posts and video clips. We look forward to your comments and suggestions on how Heifer and its partners, hard-working small farmers around the world, can realize their greatest potential.
Photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee