This
special contains five reports, and a list for further
reading: Shortage to Surplus - Honduras,
Food Security For Refugees - Tanzania, Eat Your Greens
- Vietnam, A Jab in Time - Vietnam, and Safeguarding
Deposits - Madagascar
Shortage
to Surplus - Surviving Mitch
Ten years ago, farmers living in Lempira Sur in Honduras
could barely produce enough maize, beans and sorghum
to feed their families. In 1998, when Hurricane Mitch
hit the country, the same farmers provided tonnes
of emergency food aid to their fellow citizens in
other parts of the country.
The credit for this dramatic turn around goes to
a rural development and food security project administered
by FAO, which introduced sustainable farming methods.
More importantly, by emphasising the involvement of
the beneficiaries, it proved that local participation
is the key ingredient in development.
Food
Security for Refugees - Tanzania
Not all of the refugees in the Tanzanian camps are
from Burundi. Some areas host people who fled the
violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly
Zaire) in 1996. The United Nations High Commission
for Refugees operates ten settlement camps in Tanzania,
along the Burundian border, with a total population
of over 300,000 people. For years, the World Food
Program has provided food rations but a steady diet
of the emergency staples, which are easiest for international
agencies to deliver, lacks the nutrients and the variety
healthy bodies need over a long period. As a result,
many of the refugees were undernourished.
Bringing together the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Program (WFP)
and other agencies involved with the refugee population,
FAO introduced a programme to improve the nutritional
status of the refugees. The project also provided
income generation for the refugees and improved vegetable
gardening techniques which could be replicated when
they returned home.
Eat
your Greens
Still one of the poorest countries in the world with
a GNP per capita of about US$300, Vietnam is in the
early stages of industrialisation. With a population
of approximately 78 million, it is still largely agricultural
with 80% of the population living in rural areas,
and with two thirds of its population still dependant
on agriculture for a living.
Despite being a major exporter of rice (3.5 million
tonnes in 1997), national food security remains one
of the main concerns of the Government of Vietnam
(GOV). Although the country produces more than its
requirements, distribution is not equitable and food
insecurity remains a common problem among poor families.
A
Jab in Time
Vietnam covers an area of about 33 million hectares
and some four fifths of the country is sparsely populated,
particularly the mountainous regions. About two thirds
of the total land area is forested but 13 million
hectares of this has lost its vegetation and so it
is known as the "bare hills".
Until relatively recently, the traditional shifting
cultivation practices in the mountainous areas did
not pose a significant threat to the watershed areas
as the population was small and tended not to use
agricultural sites which were subject to erosion.
However, increases in the local population and migrants
from the densely populated lowland regions have resulted
in greater demand for more agricultural land. The
use of lowland farming techniques, which are unsuitable
for the mountain regions, have been found to result
in serious erosion of the hillsides near the most
densely populated areas.
Safeguarding
Deposits
Savings are a way of spreading income available in
the good times over the times when things are not
going so well. If a harvest is plentiful, the farmer
may have some spare capital to keep for the time when
drought or disease spoils his crop. A safe place to
keep these spare funds is needed. For most people,
any money which is not needed immediately would normally
be deposited in a bank savings account both to provide
security and to earn interest.
However, for the majority of people living in the
more remote regions of Africa, a trip to a conventional
bank can involve a long journey. For most of these
people, too, the conventional banking system is unsuitable
for their needs because, generally, the normal banks
can only operate with relatively large sums of money.
To the small farmer or trader, the minimum balance
demanded is often far more than they have, so they
are left without a secure place to keep their capital.
Further
Reading
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