Promoting Community Health Workers (CHWs)

Summer Plans

This summer Agdes will be working for CRS in their "5 Skill Program." These are the skill CRS has identified as essential to become more viable farmers and link more effectively to farmers.



The skills include:



How to manage themselves as a group (developing and implementing a common vision, democratic decision-making, conflict resolution, etc.)


Savings and financial skills (crucial for

TED Talks about Food and Nutrition

Our friends from the FoodTank have compiled an excellent list of TED talks that touch on the issue of agriculture, food and nutrition. Watch and listen: 

1. Roger Thurow: The Hungry Farmer - My Moment of Great DisruptionThurow, author of The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change, explains the profound "disease of the soul" that hunger represents, and

Development Boy - A Parody Produced by Some Classmates

2012 Global Food Policy Report

Save the Bees

Check out the NYTimes reports on the bee crisis and its excellent editorial demanding action. While many questions remained unanswered,  I'm glad that the times, CBS, and others are covering the story and pressuring officials to respond. The culprit, so far, seems hard to identify. In the UK, studies have liked the bee crisis to increased use of a pesticide called neonicotinoids. Europe's Food

Al Jazeera's Inside Story on the Politics of Global Food Security

Much Needed Reform to Food Aid - We Hope

© Flickr: usaid.africa

What better way to end the month-long hiatus than by sharing the good new on food aid reform. According Politico, NYtimes and others, the Obama administration is expecting to announce a full transition to local procurement and cash vouchers. Instead of the sending containers full of US-grown commodities across the ocean, humanitarian and development organizations would

Reforming American Food Aid

Below are two key policy recommendation that Agdes has been advocating for a while. Thanks to The Chicago Council on Global Affairs for preparing the summary below and providing the leadership to support these important reforms. 

 

The 2012 US Agriculture & Food Policy
Panel and 2009 Global Agricultural Development Leaders Group issued the following recommendations:



Increase funding for

Egypt and its Forgotten Farmers

In an excellent mini-documentary, PBS explores Egyp's agriculture sector and its impact of  the revolution. The film explores how disfranchised farmers had to migrate to the urban centers after export-oriented policies left little of their livelihoods after access to capital and water was redirected to the well-connected. Poor farmers, and urban consumers tired of increasing food prices,

'World needs to work together to feed itself' - Cargill's Greg Page

In a BBC interview Cargill chief executive Greg Page talks about the importance of the global food system, giving the example of how Brazilian feed was key for the American livestock industry during last year's drought. 

Request for Information on Extension Workers

See below a special request from Jessica Fanzo. A group of Columbia students (including yours truly) is working with her in this initiative. Any information is more that welcome. 

The Secure Nutrition Knowledge Platform and the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) are undertaking a mapping exercise on home economics and nutrition in extension and advisory services and workers in

Mark Lynas Speech on GMOs

Mark Lynas' video has been circulating the blogosphere for a while now. For those of you seeing this for the first time, Mr. Lynas presents a robust defense of biotechnology and GMOs at a lecture to Oxford Farming Conference in 3 January 2013. What made so popular though, was the fact that Mr. Lynas was a former anti-GMO crusader, publishing books against it and spreading myths about the