I recently 'liked' World Watch Institute's Nourishing the Planet project on Facebook. A fantastic decision. Why? This program communicates agricultural innovations and ideas, focusing particularly on rural poverty and producing major reports on their observations of trends. Most days, my facebook homepage has a scattering of Nourishing the Planet blog articles informing me of new reports, studies, meetings, conferences, or ideas in sustainable and ecological agriculture. This is a project to watch!
I particularly resonated with Nourishing the Planet's recent post on the article, "Agroecology and the Right to Food," by U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter. De Schutter presented his ideas on agroecology and food security at a Global Hunger and Food Security briefing held by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the Interfaith Working Group on Global Hunger and Food Security. While his ideas aren't particularly new, they are well-put and aptly applied to today's developing world. Nourishing the Planet summarizes that "agroecology can help alleviate the poverty crisis by encouraging small farmers to grow a variety of complimentary crops to be sold locally, instead of growing grains exclusively for sale in the global market."
Of final interet...the World Watch project blog states that this briefing was attended by representatives from United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Wouldn't it be awesome if USAID developed agroecological programs? One can dream...
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