They’re using insects, mushrooms, and other innovative tactics to fight hunger around the world. Get to know a few innovators in hunger relief on World Food Day.
Today, an estimated 820 million people go hungry.
Violent conflict and climate-related events exacerbate the problem. And experts predict these issues will only worsen in coming decades. Fortunately, innovations in hunger relief and food security are on the rise, too.
In celebration of World Food Day, get to know a few GlobalGiving partners who are fighting for #ZeroHunger with tactics that will amaze you, including:
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the poorest and most food insecure countries in the world, and the country’s 5 million orphaned children in particular face grave hunger and malnutrition. Farms for Orphans, Inc has a solution: insects. That’s right, insects are a nutritious, inexpensive substitute for traditional protein and are a normal part of everyday diets for countless cultures around the world. They require far fewer resources to produce and generate an equivalent amount of protein as traditional livestock. Learn more.
Center for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology for the Environment (CREATE!) works in rural Senegal, where subsistence agricultural communities suffer the impacts of drought and unpredictable rainfall stemming from climate change. Few water resources in the communities where CREATE! works has restricted agricultural activities, disproportionately impacting the lives of countless Senegalese women and children. By providing access to abundant and free water pumped by solar-powered wells, CREATE! can help rural Senegalese communities become economically self-sufficient through the production of vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Women and girls will no longer need to walk long distances to collect water and communities will be able to grow surplus of nutritious crops. Learn more.
World Vision has been responding to the famine in South Sudan, a country where conflict has had a destructive impact on agriculture and food systems. Under these circumstances, delivering aid to the right people at the right location and time can be challenging. World Vision partnered with software experts to design and implement a new IT system that solves this issue and makes distribution faster and fairer. It registers and verifies beneficiaries with a unique bar-coded photo ID card, allowing distribution of relief items to those who need it most, even in remote locations without electricity or internet access. Learn more.
Green Care Association is a locally-based organization working in Cameroon where quality farmland has become obsolete due to population pressure and climate change. Farmers are forced to use degraded land, which leads to much lower yields. Green Care plants trees and does forest restoration to protect the soil, maintain the water cycle, and provide fuel, food, and medicine. They also train communities on innovative food production techniques, such as bee farming, mushroom cultivation, and rapid yam cultivation. Learn more.
Sometimes, the most sustainable solution to fighting food insecurity is as simple as connecting people with information. In Guatemala, Rainforest Alliance has developed an innovative mobile agriculture training application. This app can train farmers on anything from good agriculture practices to market coffee prices. Their focus is on climate-smart agriculture, which can improve yields for farmers without expanding farmland or destroying fragile ecosystems. With the rise of mobile devices and Internet access in developing nations and remote areas, agricultural technology is a vital way to collaborate and ensure long-term food security. In order to save forests and natural resources, we need to connect farmers with other farmers! Learn more.
Ready to make a difference? Please make a donation to GlobalGiving’s Africa Drought and Famine Fund.
Featured Photo: An App for That: Scaling Sustainable Farming by Rainforest Alliance
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