40 Chances to Create a Better Food System

Philanthropist farmer Howard G. Buffett recently released his new book, 40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World, which traces his journey to learn about the challenges and successes of farmers around the world as they battle global food insecurity.

In an article in the Huffington Post, Buffett explains the “40 Chances mindset:” “We must get outside of our comfort zones, we have to break down barriers set up by others, and we cannot always accept the status quo when it’s simply not working.”

Buffett will be travelling to more than 10 cities in the U.S. to promote the book. On Monday, October 28th, he’ll be speaking at an event in Chicago, Illinois presented by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The discussion is being co-hosted by Food Tank, among other groups.

Food Tank has compiled a list of 40 stories of hope in food and nutrition security, food sovereignty, food justice, and other stories of hope and success from across the globe. These organizations and individuals are working to make the food system more environmentally, economically, and socially just.

1. 47 Japanese Farms – This project in Japan is working to share the experiences of small-scale organic farmers in Japan after the March 2011 earthquake and subsequent nuclear crisis. The project documents the challenges they have faced and the innovations they have developed to overcome them.
2. Abooman Women’s Group – In Ghana, a group of women farmers have organized themselves into a cooperative to raise dairy cows to make yogurt. At first, their husbands were furious that their wives dared to create the co-op, but the more they saw their family incomes grow, the more they had money for health care, for better homes, and for clothing and schoolbooks for their children, the more their husband’s opposition turned to grudging and then enthusiastic support.
3. Argentine Tea Farmers Certified in Sustainability – Six tea producer groups representing some 200 small-scale farmers in the Misiones province of Argentina recently earned their certification in social, economic, and environmental sustainability from the Sustainable Agriculture Network, a coalition coordinated by the Rainforest Alliance.
4. Basque Farmers Union (EHNE-Bizkaia) – In the Basque Country, EHNE-Bizkaia provides education and economic support to its 6,000 members, and also encourages young people to return to agriculture with its youth program. EHNE-Bizkaia was recently awarded the Food Sovereignty Prize for its support of small-scale farming.
5. CEDICAM (Center for Integral Farmer Development) – To reforest a large part of the Mexican region of La Mixteca, desertified by poor farming practices, a group of Guatemalan refugee farmers taught local Mexican farmers how to restore soil health using traditional, agro-ecological farming methods. These farmers formed CEDICAM, and have since planted more than four million trees on formerly barren land.
6. Dyno Keatinge – At the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC) in Taiwan, Keatinge has studied the impact that a lack of access to vegetables has on childhood malnutrition and childhood mortality. With successful pilot gardens in Lao PDR, Thailand, and the Philippines, AVRDC is now working to implement teaching gardens in elementary schools in Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Bhutan, and Nepal.
7. EARTH University’s Student-Farmer Partnerships – At EARTH University in Costa Rica, young people are learning integrated farming and natural resource management. As part of EARTH University’s curriculum, students work one-on-one with smallholder farmers to assist in rural community development, addressing challenges that face farmers and their communities.
8. Eat Jamaican Campaign – This government campaign is reviving Jamaican smallholder farming, even in unconventional settings. Gardens are now being maintained in homes, schools, hospitals, and even prisons.
9. Fiji Ministry of Agriculture’s Rural and Outer Island Program – This government program helps smallholder farmers in the Lomaiviti Province diversify their agricultural products in order to increase income and move away from dependence on a single product. The government of Fiji is also supporting farmers in processing cassava and dalo into value-added products, including chips and flour, to increase their incomes.
10. Flor Cañete de Sanabria and Edita de Jesús Franco de Sanabria – In Paraguay, these two women farmers are making sure that women’s voices are represented in decisions around rural development and agriculture projects. They are the only women on a 28-member committee of rural producers operating under the Ministry of Agriculture’s Sustainable Rural Development Project.
11. FSN Forum in West Africa – The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum) recently launched a network focusing on projects and initiatives that promote food security and nutrition in West Africa. The forum will coordinate online discussions to foster dialogue around solving food system challenges facing West Africa. The first discussion will examine the question, “How can social protection contribute to food security and nutrition in West Africa?”
12. Govinda Sharma – Sharma is the founder of the HASERA Farm in Patalekhet, Nepal, which is a research and training center focused on organic agriculture, sustainable development, and permaculture. At the farm, he and his family instruct visitors and community members in the importance of sharing resources as a community.
13. Haiti’s Group of Four (G4) – This coalition of the country’s largest peasant organizations has supported the conservation of native seeds and development of small-scale agriculture. G4 and the Dessalines Brigade also provided outreach to victims of Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. Along with EHNE-Bizkaia, this initiative was a winner of the 2013 Food Sovereignty Prize.
14. Hastings Urban Farm – This urban farm in Vancouver, British Columbia is “empowering Canada’s poorest area code” by providing residents of the Downtown Eastside neighborhood with fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables on a sliding-scale cost basis. The farm aims to grow 2,000 pounds of produce this year.
15. Healthy Basket – In Beirut, Lebanon, this Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiative works with small-scale Lebanese farmers to sell their certified organic produce to urban customers at fair prices. Healthy Basket, which began as a project of the American University of Beirut, was the first Lebanese CSA.
16. Iceland’s Geothermal Preservation Project – President of Iceland Olafur Rafnur Grimmson has announced a goal to scale up the country’s practice of drying locally caught fish with geothermal heat, an abundant natural resource. The preserved fish is then exported to developing countries, such as Nigeria, where it is sold by women entrepreneurs.
17. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) – The Minneapolis-based organization is encouraging eaters, farmers, and policy-makers to move beyond the Farm Bill and come up with more just, environmentally sustainable methods of food production in the United States.
18. Kallarí Collective – Founded by Quichua farmers in Ecuador, this collective farms cacao and produces chocolate using environmentally sustainable methods. The collective also provides economic support for its farmers by securing fair prices for the cacao.
19. Kes Malede Abreha – Abreha, a “farmer-priest” in northern Ethiopia, developed a water pump for a well he dug on his own land. Using the pump, he was able to transform his family’s subsistence farm into a flourishing plot with diverse crops, poultry, livestock, and even beehives.
20. LaDonna Redmond – Founder of the Campaign for Food Justice Now (CFJN) in Chicago, Illinois, Redmond fights for social justice through reforming the food system. Food justice, Redmond points out, is about more than just nutrition. She raises awareness of how it affects the health of a community by contributing to a wide variety of threats, from gang violence to noncommunicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
21. Mariam Gnire Ouattara – As the leader of the Slow Food Chigata convivium in the Ivory Coast, Ouattara has been leading the women of the village of N’Ganon to organize a farming co-operative in order to serve nutritious, local food in schools. Ouattara partnered with Slow Food International to form the co-op, which now produces rice, groundnuts, white beans, and a variety of vegetables. The group reaches out to other villages with the goal of replicating the project around the Ivory Coast.
22. Masaya Urban Garden Project – In Masaya, Nicaragua, the Foundation for Sustainable Development and Masaya Without Borders Association have teamed up to use food waste and recyclable goods to create community gardens to fight hunger and malnutrition.
23. Mwalimu Musheshe – Musheshe founded African Rural University, an all-women agricultural school, to educate Ugandan women about the importance of environmentally sustainable farming traditions. The university’s focus is not on teaching agroecological practices for the sake of environmental conservation alone, but also for producing more nutritious crops for communities.
24. Nancy Karanja and Mary Njenga – As researchers with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the Department of Land Resource and Management and Agricultural Technology at the University of Nairobi, respectively, Karanja and Njenga have studied different methods of reclaiming waste and conserving energy resources that are gradually being put into practice in urban agriculture in the Nairobi area. These methods include making charcoal briquettes out of biodegradable waste and using wastewater to irrigate urban farms.
25. New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) – To help reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with cattle farming, the New Zealand government established this initiative following the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations. Currently, the ETS provides incentives to individuals and businesses to help reduce greenhouse gases.
26. Nick Rose – Rose was instrumental in the launch of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA)’s first Fair Food Week, bringing attention to the “battle underway for the soul of Australia’s food system.” AFSA is working to establish Australia’s first grassroots and open-sourced food policy initiative, with a focus on small-scale farming.
27. Paro Nacional Agrario y Popular (National Farmers’ and People’s Strike) – In Colombia, approximately 200,000 farmers and allies went on strike in August to protest a law that would give the govenrment control of farmers’ seeds. After 21 days of the strike, the Colombian government agreed to block the proposed law.
28. Parque de la Papa (Potato Park) – In this “park,” small-scale, indigenous farmers are cultivating over 1,000 native varieties of potato on mountain slope plots. They are collaborating with the Centro Internacional de la Papa (International Potato Center), a research institution in Lima, to preserve the seeds.
29. Parque Genesiano da Luz Community Garden – A group of dedicated women in one of the poorest areas of Nova Iguaçu, Brazil have developed a flourishing community garden. In the face of severe hardship – lacking seeds, transportation to take their produce to the market, and tools – the women banded together and formed the Univerde Cooperative to educate themselves on productive urban farming methods.
30. Puente a la Salud Comunitaria – This initiative is working with more than 400 farmers in the Oaxaca region of Mexico to grow and market amaranth as a healthier alternative to corn and wheat, in an effort to fight obesity.
31. Rasaq Qadirie – Qadirie is working to save indigenous seeds in Afghanistan to preserve the great diversity of Afghani crops. Through his work, Qadirie hopes to rebuild the small-scale agriculture industry in Afghanistan, which has suffered from decades of violent conflict.
32. Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – In India, Ela R. Bhatt founded SEWA to attain labor rights for women who are informally employed, including many women farmers. Bhatt has also founded the Cooperative Bank of SEWA, which provides financial services to its 93,000 members.
33. Selina Juul – Juul’s campaign, Stop Spild Af Mad (Stop Wasting Food), inspired the supermarket Rema 1000 to replace buy-one-get-one-free and other quantity-based discounts with general discounts in all of its stores. Such discounts, frequently implemented by grocery stores to get produce off the shelves, often result in food being wasted at home.
34. Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation – In Australia, this program is teaching children about nutrition through hands-on gardening and cooking education programs. The Foundation now works with 408 schools across the country.
35. Sue Edwards – As the Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development, Edwards is working to influence promote sustainable development in Ethiopia with a focus on small-scale farmers. Edwards has undertaken valuable research on the role of indigenous crops, such as ensete, in sustainable farming.
36. Thembi Ndema – Ndema is working to create a supportive space for youth and women and agriculture with the FANRPAN Youth and Gender Programme in South Africa, which is developing a holistic agriculture policy framework in Africa.
37. Tristram Stuart – With his United Kingdom-based campaign, Feeding the 5000, Stuart works with governments, businesses, and civilians to find solutions to global food waste. Feeding the 5000 regularly hosts events in which people are invited to eat a free nutritious lunch made entirely from food that would otherwise be wasted.
38. TRY Oyster Cooperative – This grassroots initiative in The Gambia is working to support the livelihoods of oyster harvesters and their families with microfinance, skill building, and financial literacy education. The cooperative has grown from 40 members in 2007 to 500 today, and includes 15 villages in the Banjul area.
39. Utviklingsfondet (The Development Fund) – This Norwegian NGO is dedicated to promoting a fairer distribution of the world’s resources, sustainable development, local participation in promoting democracy and human rights, reducing poverty, and protecting the environment. For example, Utviklingsfondet has developed a campaign around the “Superfarmer” to raise awareness about the role that smallholder farmers play in environmentally sustainable food production.
40. Women’s Agricultural Cooperative of Pétra – Women small-scale farmers and producers in a small town on the island of Lesvos, Greece established this cooperative to increase their power in the market – and as a result, their incomes. The Pétra cooperative now acts as a major agro-tourism site, where women sell traditional Greek foods, such as olive oils and pastas.