“Small and simple efforts make big efforts. When we talk about food security, we must focus on small scale farmers, especially women farmers”. – Sami Hassan

The final session I attended at the LDC conference was on the role of women in agriculture. The session was sponsored by the Zenab for Women in Development (http://www.zenab.org/) based in Sudan. This was a great meeting and incredibly informative. The organizers and farmers from Zenab talked about actual ways women farmers are improving their livelihood, not just theoretical ideas.  



Agriculture Tools Built by Zenab



The founder and president of Zenab is Fatima Ahmed, who presented most of the information about the organization and explained their practices. Currently, Zenab is working with over a 1,000 women in over 25 rural communities throughout Sudan. Based on their research and experience the agriculture programs have greatly enhanced lives of woman throughout Sudan. They believe that if these initiatives were adopted in other rural communities, especially in African, food security issues could change for the better.

Zenab development work is mainly concentrated on women farmers. Their services mainly consist of providing seeds, assisting in land preparation and providing farming tools to women.

Hagir Ibrahim, a women in farmer from Sudan and an organization project manager, presented a case study about the Gedaref state in Sudan on women subsistence farmers, whom make up 57% of all farmers in Gedaref.

Lack of land sovereignty is a problem for rural farmers around the world; we see that this injustice is also problematic in Sudan. One of the main barriers that women face is land sovereignty. In Gedaref only 1% of all land is registered under a women’s name. As result of their little or no assets it is very difficult to gain access bank loans and purchase land. The lack of land limits them to growing food for only their families and unable to grow any cash crops.

One of the first actions Zenab in Gedaref was to help organize start a womens’farmer women’s union in collaboration with local agriculture authorities. Through the union a savings group was established, which eventually allowed women to establish credit with banks. With credit women were able to purchase land and began to plant cash crops. The creation of the farmer’s union helped build partnership with public and private financial groups. This was a crucial step because it increased access to inputs and outputs markets as well as knowledge, technology and extension services.

Zenab also focused on increasing women’s access to farming tools or intermediate technology. Many of the women in Gedaref were limited to using a sal’luca, a traditional tool used to prepare the land for planting. The use of new technology and tools increased efficiency, production capabilities and quality of life for women

materials used to build agriculture tools

Sami Hassan, an agriculture engineer with Zenab, built several products that enabled women to produce more for their families and increase their production levels. All of the products are made in the communities from local or recycled materials.

• Hand driven fertilizer that is light, robust and easy to operate. Allows of equal distribution of fertilizer, instead of hand distribution.
• Hand driven inter row cultivator, removes weeds from in between plants. This is instead of using one small hand tool while sitting on ground.
• Hand driven ridge re-shaper, in Sudan they plant on ridges not flat land. For high production it is essential to reshape ridges, it encourages water flow and good soil production.
• Hand driven precise planter that can plant two rows at a time. Planter also places seeds in the correct depths and spacing.

presenters from Zenab

Sami than went on to explain; “As a LDC, 70% of population is engaged with agriculture. If we are generally concerned about development, we must focus on agriculture. We must touch on the needs of the people to make the change. These small and simple technologies assist in the development of countries”.

Overall it was a very interesting session and provided concrete, simple solutions on how to improve lives of women farmers in rural communities. I appreciated that NGO workers and women farmers from Sudan made the presentation, not university professors conducting research on foreign “subjects”.

Domestic Workers and Migration

Gender and Migration: Care workers at the interface of migration and Development

Sponsored by UN Women and International Labor Organization

On Thursday I attended a meeting on domestic workers and migration, sponsored by UN Women and the International Labor Organization. This meeting was a good follow-up to other events I attended at the UN this past year. The event was facilitated by Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile and now executive director of UN Women.

The migration of care workers and their rights is an issue that is very inter-related with the LDCs. Many of the workers migrate from LDCs to find employment in wealthier countries. A domestic worker or care worker is usually someone employed in a home, providing elderly care, cleaning, cooking or child care services. More often then not it is a woman, working in a country that is not her own and sending a large portion of her earning back home to her family.

We heard from an expert in the field, Prof. Judy Fudge from the University of Victoria in Canada. She explained that immigrant women lack many rights within host countries and are often restricted to care work.

Many of the women lack any labor standards or protection from abuse. It is difficult to impose any employment regulations when workers are living and working in their employers’ home. Dr. Fudge empathized that it is important to have international labor standards in order to recognize the importance of domestic work. If these labor standards are passed by the UN and internationalized organizations will be able to better regulate working conditions and workers’ unions will receive international protection.

One of the solutions Prof. Fudge and the other speakers mentioned is the convention on Decent Work for Domestic workers. Currently the ILO is trying to pass a draft convention at the United Nations. The convention is very comprehensive and essential to giving domestic worker the respect and protection they deserve.

Overall the meeting was interesting and relevant to current conventions that are being drafted at the UN. But I was incredibly disappointed in the lack of diversity, specifically class diversity. Several times through the event the speakers would mention how “domestic workers help us” and “workers are essential in our households”. I feel as if so many of theses meetings are incredibly classist and egotistical. How can you have a meeting about domestic workers in the LDCs without having workers present to talking about their struggles and what they want?

In many ways none of these ideas and conventions can not be implemented or actualized while neo-liberal policies are being enforced by global governing bodies. Without a looking for alternatives to our current capitalist system the disparity between the rich and poor will continue to grow and low-wage workers will continue to be exploited.

The following quote from Paulo Freire, author of the outstanding book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed exemplifies many of my thoughts about this meeting and others that I have attended in recent months; "Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress".

Food Vulnerabilities in the LDCs

This afternoon I attended a large thematic debate at the official LDC-IV conference titled: Reducing food vulnerabilities, responding to emerging challenges and enhancing food security in least developed countries. In simple terms it was a meeting that addressed why LDCs are at high risk for food vulnerability and what can be done to address these challenges.

The main themes of the event were climate changes effects on food security, importance of investing in small farmers, malnutrition and how farming and agriculture are the backbone of the LDCs.



Picture from the meeting today



Climate change and agriculture are obviously very interrelated, as weather patterns change so do crop yields. Dr. Louis Kasekende from Uganda explained that: “Climate change is close to wiping out any development the LDCs made over the past ten years.” Dr. Kasekende pointed to the case of South Asia whose crop yields over the past decade have decreased 30%-40% due to complexities of climate change.

Specifically one can look at the increase of droughts worldwide. Case studies of countries effected by droughts show how changing climate patterns systematically affects the entire social structure of countries. Prof. Anna Tibaijuka from Tanzania stressed that: “A huge vulnerability of  LDCs is drought (a majority of LDCs are in Africa) and how it disproportionally affects the poor. Drought has serious impacts on the economies of rural communities. Often it forces families to sell their assets in order to make up for agriculture losses. Assets usually consist of livestock, which has to be sold in a vey depressed market, resulting in even higher losses for families. Drought has serious implications on women’s livelihood. It can make women more vulnerable to malnutrition and increase in physical violence and abuse. This is in addition to an all ready stressed and unstable living environment.”

Many of the speakers stressed that there must be a safety net to enhance the resistance of people as they deal with the impacts of climate change. Mr. Amir Abdulla, Deputy Secretary Director of the World Food Program, explained that climate change will potentially increase the number of people dealing with food insecurity by 10-20%. Which means there will be 25 million more malnourished children in world, a direct consequence of climate change.

There has been a shift in aid/development from food distribution to impoverished countries to building infrastructures that support small farmers to be self-reliant and grow their own food. Gender plays an important role in this because women are usually the farmers. Dr. Babu Mathews, from the South Asia Alliance to Eradicate Poverty, addressed the question of food production and distribution when analyzing food vulnerabilities in the LDCs. “In order for there to be adequate food production it is tremendously importance that land is given to women with countries following the principle of eminent domain. On a community level it is important that group farming and communal granaries are supported. Only by really prioritizing subsistence farming can you have food security."

Food vulnerability is a struggle for millions of people around the world. The meeting did a good job at analyzing the issue and how international documents dealing with food vulnerability must be ratified because of climate change. But it is difficult for me to see how any of these changes will be actualized, particularly because of the lack of farmers from the LDcs present at the meetings and I assume in the document negotiation processes. One change that could be addressed as result of the meeting is organizations such the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food program altering their current aid distribution models. Sadly, it does not seem too hopeful that changes will be made by mega food aid organizations. The first thing the FAO representative discussed was how the organization is increasing chemical fertilizer distribution by millions of tons and increasing access to “scientifically enhanced seeds” (aka Monsanto GMO seeds) to farmers in the LDCs. From my very limited understanding I see the only way for their to be real food security is by small subsistence farmers organizing themselves, continuing traditional farming methods (with the addition of new farming techniques that encourage bio-diversity), ending a the force feeding of GMO seeds, lowering tariffs so goods can be exported at a just price and incorporating communal farming. Basically everything that the peasant organization La Via Campesina and the goddess of seed saving Vandana Shiva advocate.

I encourage you to read La Via Campesina's report on "How Small Farmers Can Feed the World": http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=8&Itemid=30

We need to have an alternate system to promote just trade and a democratic system. We must fight for a new humanism, beyond capitalism and socialism!

Day #3 LDC conference

05/10/11

“An alliance of the marginalized is the way forward. It must happen at community, country, regional, and global levels. We need to have alternate system to promote just trade and a democratic system. We must fight for a new humanism, beyond capitalism and socialism!” – Prof. Babu Mathew, Director ActionAid India

A common dialogue during the conference is neo-liberalism and capitalisms’ repeated failures. Prof. Babu Mathew, from India, gave a great presentation at a plenary today on how LDCs are struggling as result of neo-liberalism policies and capitalism. This is being emphasized through out the conference because it gets to the root cause of why LDCs are not developing.

For those of you new to political lingo the term neo-liberalism is in reference to Ronald Regan/Margaret Thatcher style of economics; the epitome of corporate gain over economic equality. The five main concepts of neo-liberalism: the rule of the market, the cutting of public expenditures for social service (welfare), unregulated markets (environmental and labor laws), privatization and replacing the concept of the public good with “individual responsibilities”.

Prof. Mathews explained that neo-liberalism forms when there is a combination of what multi-national corporations would like to do and what the industrial military complex decides to do. 

As I mentioned in my last my last report agriculture and land sovereignty play a large role in how LDCs develop. Prof. Mathews explained that post-Istanbul we need to pay close attention to agriculture sectors and support a new agricultural system. He explained: “The agriculture industrial system has failed. It is impossible for the industrial system to absorb the excess labor, specifically in developing countries. The shift to agriculture will be difficult, but necessary. Industrialization has failed the people, but has been very successful for multi-national corporations. There are movements in the global south towards local food production and the fight against corporations. Specifically we can look to India and the wide spread movement to save seeds and fight Monsanto. All attention needs to be turned towards agriculture”.

During the plenary the concept of LDCs taking ownership of their own development were discussed at length. Rudy de Mar from the organization 11/11 in Belgium carefully articulated what ownership means for LDCs:

“I have ambiguous feeling about the concept of ownership. A core component of the development process is that people must decide what happens to them. But the term ownership is often vague and a misused word in the development world. When we start talking about ownership, we are basically talking about the question of power. Ownership is not a gift thrown in your hand, you must to grab and conquer it.”.

Thus concept of “ownership” is similar to the term “empowerment”, terms that are often thrown around at UN conferences and in documents. Both concepts need to organically develop within communities and countries. A person does not become empowered by being told “we will give you A, B and C and then you will be empowered”. You have power when you decide to take power and there is a social structure that allows power to develop. This concept is transferrable to a country level, if there is global economic system that does not exploit and “own” LDCs they will have a chance be have ownership and develop at their chosen pace.

Food Sovereignty and Trade

May 9, 2011

LDC Conference Istanbul

One of the key issues for Least Developed Countries is food security and agricultural trade policies. This morning I attended a very informative meeting on trade and agriculture titled: Dangers of Trade Liberalization: WTO Doha Round and Economic Partnership Agreements and Implications for LDCs.

The meeting was sponsored by two organizations; Our World is Not For Sale (http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/) and the Third World Network (http://www.twnside.org.sg/agriculture_negotiations.htm). Meena Ramen, from Friends of the Earth (http://www.foe.co.uk/index.html) was a very knowledgeable and passionate speaker. Ms. Ramen raised important questions regarding certain governments’ policies of importing cheap food instead of focusing on local food agriculture. During her speech she explained the serious implication this has on countries food security, their rising food prices and jobs in the agriculture sectors.

Food security is can be defined as “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life (www.who.org)”. An important component of food security (that is often left out) is food sovereignty. Food sovereignty does not advocate for food needs to be met by foreign distribution or importation of food. Food sovereignty can be defined as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems”. It also is a “platform for rural revitalization at a global level based on equitable distribution of farmland and water, farmer control over seeds, and productive small-scale farms supplying consumers with healthy, locally grown food”.

Ms. Ramen described a series of factors that prevent many of the LDCs’ from having both food security and sovereignty. The main barrier is the result of a monopoly that northern “developed” countries have over trade tariffs and taxes on their agriculture exports to the “developing” countries in the south. For example, in the US it costs $415 per ton to grow rice. That rice is then exported out of the country for $205 per ton, as result of farm subsidies given by the US government. As result farmers in the global south are unable to compete with prices and the US grown rice (often grown by corporate farms) is artificially cheaper than rice prices in country. Case study after case study shows that the competition from cheaply subsidized imports severely displaces local farmers and food prices. This is very interrelated with gender, for many women in Africa agriculture is their lifeblood. On the continent women make up 53% of the population and 80% of them work within the agricultural economy. Thus, greedy European and American trade tariffs have a huge impact on women livelihoods and their right to decent employment. 

As result there are very serious implications for the LDCs because of trade tariffs. If the UN is really serious about strengthening rural agriculture it must be recognized that agriculture a key pillar in production capacity. There needs to be a change in trade agreements and only once that happens will the LDCs be given a fair chance have food sovereignty and security. This will be a continued discussion throughout the conference, with a high level meetings taking place on food security later on the week.

Speaking of food soverignety, after the conference ended on Sunday me and some friends (new and old!), went to the Black Sea for a BBQ. Here is a little taste of my experience in Turkey! Enjoy

Eggplant for a Sunday Evening at the Black Sea

7 small/thin eggplants

5 cloves of garlic

2 tsp of sea salt

1/2 of a small onion

3 Tablespoons of Olive Oil

Poke holes in eggplant and place them directly over coals/wood. You can also do this over a gas stove or BBQ. Flip every few minutes until skins on all side are blackeded. Let cool for 10 mins.

Peel eggplants (carefully with your hands) and take off the the blackened skins. Place the pulp in a bowl. Discard or compost the skin. Finely mince garlic and onion.

Mash together eggplant, with onions, garlic, olive oil and salt.

Get some crunchy bread, dip in and enjoy!

Greetings from Istanbul!



view of istanbul



May 7, 2010

Least Developed Countries Conference

Day #1

Istanbul, Turkey

 For the next week I will be covering the Least Developed Countries conference for the Loretto Community and Feminist Task Force. This is a very important UN conference which addresses issues specifically related to least developed countries. A country is classified as an LDC by meeting the following three factors: economic vulnerability, low-income (per capita income less than $905) and human resource weakness. This will be the Fourth UN conference on the LDCs; the last conference took place in Belgium in 2001. Currently, there are 48 LDCs with a majority of them on the continent of Africa. The purpose of this conference is to assess the results of the 10-year action plan from the Belgium conference and adopt strategies for the sustainable development of the LDCs into the next decade.

 

Today was the first day of the LDC conference; the day started out with a panel and introduction to the conference. We first heard from Dr. Karamen, Chairmen of Doctors Worldwide. In his speech he explained that “we need to seek ways to fulfill our responsibility of the LDCs and that the problems faced by them are problems that face humanity as a whole.” We heard from various organizers of the conference, followed by a dialgue on the objective of the conference. During this session there was lively debate with various people from all over the world. The participants questioned the role of the LDCs and the outcomes of the conference.



this morning's meeting



One woman from a labor organization in the D.R. of Congo passionately asked the panel, “What type of action can we take after the conference? We are a drop of water in the ocean, less than 1% of NGO’s are represented here. How can we mobilize the largest number of people? Grants run our country; no one wants to listen to the people! We must begin to mobilize now and examine our role in how to end inequality for the LDCs.”

Tomorrow the official events start, and I look forward to participating, meeting people, and learning about peoples’ struggles. During my time here I look forward to examining what we at the Loretto Community can do to address international injustices.