State of the World 2011: Innovations That Nourish the Planet [ペーパーバック]

The path toward alleviating worldwide hunger and poverty will more likely be found by focusing on small-scale local initiatives than simply producing more food, a new study says. In its annual State of the World report, the Worldwatch Institute describes successful programs to combat hunger, poverty, and the effects of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa. In Gambia, the government is working with a newly formed women's organization that monitors the local oyster fishery to prevent overharvesting; in Kenya, women cultivate "vertical" gardens in sacks that provide a source of revenue as well as food security for their families; and in Uganda, school children are taught about nutrition, food preparation, and how to grow local crops. Brian Halweil, co-director of the project, said shifting global attention from production to meeting the needs of local populations and cutting waste will provide a greater return on international investment. "Roughly 40 percent of the food currently produced worldwide is wasted before it is consumed, creating large opportunities for farmers and households to save both money and resources by reducing this waste," he said.

-Reposted from Yale Environment 360

Twenty-seven years on from its first State of the World report, the Worldwatch Institute is still measuring global progress toward a sustainable society in an annual volume of policy-oriented interdisciplinary research. Appropriately, the 2011 edition focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, where small farmers are drawing on ancient cultural wisdom and new technologies to produce abundant food without devastating local soils or the global ecosystem.

Worldwatch's "Nourishing the Planet" team studied - and have spread the word about -- African farmers' successes in areas such as drip irrigation, rooftop gardening, agroforestry and soil protection. Innovation, writes Worldwatch president Christopher Flavin, is taking place in some of the world's poorest communities - and "may have a greater impact on people and the planet than most high-tech innovation does".

Rapid and productive change is possible, Flavin argues, by empowering small farmers - particularly women - with simple but transformative innovations. The progress they make can bring the world nearer to the UN millennium development goal of halving world hunger by 2015.

Hunger is not the only problem, of course. In many areas, the earth is approaching the limits of arable land and water, so rising agricultural productivity - "more crop per drop" -- is increasingly important. Agriculture today, being heavily dependent on fossil fuels, both contributes to global warming and also is at severe risk from it. Without cheap oil to replace degraded renewable resources, Flavin notes, "innovations such as using green cover crops as natural fertiliser or locally produced biofuels as a substitute for diesel fuel are so exciting".

Many of the agricultural innovations explored in State of the World 2011, says Worldwatch, can help reverse damage done to water and soils through food production, as well as to the ecosystem services that everyone depends on. Amid the challenges that lie ahead, wise implementation of appropriate technology, knowledge and skills can produce myriad benefits for Africa. These include protecting freshwater supplies, safeguarding local food biodiversity, restoring fisheries, adapting to climate change and improving human health.

"Nourishing people and nourishing the planet are now as inextricably linked as they are essential to our future," Flavin writes. With more systematic and radical thinking about the future of the world's food network, "agriculture may once again become the centre of human innovation - and the goals of ending hunger and creating a sustainable world will be a little closer than they are today." And certainly closer than they were when that first State of the World report was published in 1984.
-- By Maryann Bird, associate editor of chinadialogue.

Time to come out shortly after the President's State of the Union address, the State of the World publications have established themselves as a thoughtful and meaningful 'must-read' each year. Writ large, these studies bring together high-quality pieces that look at a problem or issue from a number of angles and it is hard to believe that even 'experts' in a field can pick up one of these volumes and fail to learn from them. Two tremendous values found in essentially every one: a systems-of-systems perspective providing a window on linkages and interconnections; and, focusing not only on problems/challenges but also providing meaningful solution options.

This year's State of the World certainly lives up to the standards set by previous State of the World publications. This looks intensely at the challenges -- and opportunities -- of agriculture in some of the poorest areas of the world.

What sets this volume apart is the structure and execution of the "Nourishing the Planet" project, which has sent researchers to many nations and led to interactions with researchers and (innovative) projects that offer a range of solutions from funding basic agricultural equipment for small landowners to improve productivity to introduction of vertical garden options to improve urban garden productivity to solar systems for efficient irrigation to ...

As noted, reading these volumes cannot fail to offer learning opportunities. For example, I had not realized that humanity 'wastes' over half our produced calories. And, that this wastage is so radically different between the 'developed' and 'developing' worlds. In the first (the 'rich' OECD, in essence), the agricultural system has become highly efficient at harvesting and delivering into processing with relatively low losses. The wastage derives from a simple fact: the rich can afford to be wasteful. How much food is thrown out by the retailer (not pretty vegetables?), the restaurants (uneaten food, not purchased food), or at the home (those vegetables left uneaten on the plate or rotted in the back of the fridge). On the other hand, the developing world has much greater losses getting food from production to the consumer due to losses in the fields (insects, rodents ...), inadequate transport options, poor storage, etc ... The shorthand, for so many it seems, for addressing hunger is 'greater production' (that 'new green revolution') while humanity could go a great distance towards secure food supplies by addressing wastage.