Africa Harvest

I had an idea that my superhero should be teaching sustainable, organic, small-scale farming to subsistence farmers in Africa. It turned out to be quite hard to find.

I found two interesting characters on the Ashoka.org network. The first is a South African, Gerrit Hendriks. He “helps small-scale farmers develop their own organic farming cooperatives... Participating farmers bring their goods to a central location where it is graded for selling... Gerrit provides training and mentoring to the farmers in organic farming methods, and all products sold through the cooperative are certified organic.” His program has more to do with economic development than the “bottom billion” poverty alleviation that I’m looking for, but otherwise he’s doing all the right things. Farmers are taught skills; they are formed into groups which have more influence in the market than individuals would; finally they are sent out like missionaries to teach other farmers what they have learnt. Stakeholder participation; psychological ownership; practical solutions using available resources.

The second fellow offered up by Ashoka.org hails from Ecuador – Jaime Idrovo. His idea is to combine “pre-colonial agricultural techniques with those of post-modern organic agriculture to help indigenous farmers [of the Andes] economically and socially.” It turns out that ancient methods of irrigation, terracing, and cultivation, together with modern permaculture, dramatically improve farm outputs, and are not nearly as damaging to the environment as the slash-and-burn farming typical in the area. There’s a social side-effect that gives the wh*** project a warm, fuzzy feeling – “By demonstrating the enduring wisdom of ancestral knowledge, the long-oppressed and culturally-demeaned indigenous farmers of the Andes can see how the practices of his or her ancestors are more effective than those of the modern system.”

Both of the above projects, however, are relatively small in scale, and would be hard to track on the internet. I kept searching...

Africa Harvest, headed by a lady called Florence Wambugu, is based in Kenya. “Through a variety of scientific and community based interventions throughout the agricultural value chain, Florence has ... dramatically increased both the food security and incomes of smallholder farms in Kenya and throughout Africa.” This is what I’m looking for. They don’t preach Organic Farming, as I was hoping for. Rather, they provide genetically-modified varieties of indigenous crops which are have improved drought- and disease- resistance, among other advantages. Ashoka.org describes a value chain with 5 modules for poor farmers. “Information and education to build respect, links between farmers and new technologies, links to agronomists and scientists, marketing of the farmers’ products by Africa Harvest, and links between farmers and markets.” There are 500,000 small farmers involved in the project. 2 of their initiatives caught my eye. First, there is a project to develop a vitamin- and iron-enriched, drought-resistant sorghum. Sorghum is THE staple food in Africa, but they’re going to continue with other foodstuffs like veggies and potatoes. Second is a tree-planting initiative that rehabilitates river edges, and thus enhances the water quality in the streams.

What impressed me about this foundation is its professionalism; the in-depth-ness and holistic, systemic approach with which they tackle the issue from a number of different sides. I read yesterday that one piece of advice for developing Africa is to think big – that a project should reach millions of people if it’s going to make a real difference. This project is doing that.

The project is big enough that they have their own website, which appears frequently updated (I have favourite the website.) I’ve signed up to receive newsletters from the organisation. And I’ve read through the pretty extensive website about what they do. I only chickened out of actually writing an email to warn them that I’m now stalking them.