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This Week's Edition of the Global Food for Thought News Brief

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Roger Thurow - Outrage and Inspire - "Hope Springs Eternal"

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

With the arrival of spring comes an enduring optimism: Hope springs eternal.

That is what we say on the north side of Chicago as another baseball season nears.  Could this be the year – after 102 years – that the Cubs finally win a World Series?  No games have yet been played, so every team is in first place, the Cubs – wonder of wonders -- included.

A similar hope and optimism consumes the farmers of western Kenya I have been visiting.  As they plant their maize seed, hope springs eternal that this might be a year of bumper harvests and great opportunity.

Final Thoughts from Mozambique

From March 12-20, 2011, Global Agricultural Development Initiative co-chairs, Catherine Bertini & Dan Glickman, have embarked on a fact-finding trip to Tanzania and Mozambique to visit agricultural development and food security projects. They are blogging on their experiences, key observations, and questions that arise during their travels. Check out their itinerary.  Stay tuned for GADI's Trip Report and you can also submit your questions here.

March 20 --- Maputo, Mozambique

After a fruitful, eight day visit to southeast Africa, our team is departing for the U.S. A few final comments:

• Please check out our final itinerary.
• The Chicago Council will shortly be producing a trip report that will layout general observations about how agricultural development and food security projects are having impact in Tanzania and Mozambique.  The report will include details on successful models we encountered, challenges we learned about, and overall impressions about the potential changes that could be achieved through increasing investments in agricultural development in these two countries.  In this report we’ll also capture our discussions with government, bilateral donor, and international organization leadership in each country.
• Trip photos will be posted on the Global Food for Thought Blog in days to come. 

We are extremely grateful to the organizations and persons that provided the information and logistical support to make this trip possible including: our hosts – the World Food Programme, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, and the U.S. Agency for International Development; the many government, NGO, international organization, and bilateral donor leaders and staff that shared information about their projects and perceptions about opportunities and challenges candidly with us while in-country; those that followed and commented on our travels via the blog, facebook, and twitter; and, most importantly, the farmers, families, and private citizens that were gracious enough to talk with us about their experiences. 

Catherine Bertini & Dan Glickman

Cochairs, Global Agricultural Development Initiative

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Read Co-chairs' New Commentary from Mozambique

From March 12-20, 2011, Global Agricultural Development Initiative co-chairs, Catherine Bertini & Dan Glickman, have embarked on a fact-finding trip to Tanzania and Mozambique to visit agricultural development and food security projects. They are blogging on their experiences, key observations, and questions that arise during their travels.  Check out their itinerary.  Stay tuned for more commentaries and you can also submit your questions here.

March 17-18 --- Nampula, Mozambique

After spending time in Tanzania, we headed to Nampula, a region in northeast Mozambique, to continue visits to USAID, WFP, and AGRA projects. 

As many are aware, Mozambique is a country that has faced severe challenges – it was the location of a proxy conflict during the Cold War and then had a severe civil war for the better part of the last few decades.  According to the Human Development Index, it is one of the five poorest countries in the world.

Although we only saw a few projects during our brief visit to Mozambique, our delegation was very impressed at people’s resilience and commitment to improving their livelihoods, especially in agriculture; the country’s agricultural potential; and the energy of the USAID, WFP, and AGRA teams working to support Mozambique’s agricultural sector growth.  It seemed that donors – bilateral, international, and NGOs – were communicating and integrating agricultural programs to maximize sectoral impacts.  Although most programs have received little funding for agricultural specific projects (Mozambique expects to receive just $10 million for Feed the Future in FY11), funds are being invested strategically, and having significant impact. 

This Week's Edition of the Global Food for Thought News Brief

 

Please click here to view this week's edition of the Global Food for Thought news brief. 

If you have not signed up to receive Global Food for Thought by email, please do so by clicking here.

New Commentary from Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman

Copyright: The Chicago Council on Global Affairs

From March 12-20, 2011, Global Agricultural Development Initiative co-chairs, Catherine Bertini & Dan Glickman, have embarked on a fact-finding trip to Tanzania and Mozambique to visit agricultural development and food security projects. They are blogging on their experiences, key observations, and questions that arise during their travels. Check out their itinerary.  Stay tuned for more commentaries and you can also submit your questions here.

March 15, 2011 --- Morogoro, Tanzania

Improving Small Farmers' Access to Inputs and Markets

On our last day in Morogoro, we had two excellent meetings with an emerging private seed production and distribution company and a women’s horticulture farmer group beginning work with USAID’s Feed the Future Initiative.

Key Observations:

A great feature of our visit to Tanzania has been to witness how targeted interventions are enhancing whole value chains.  As you may remember, yesterday we visited with an agro-dealer in Nyandira that, in part due to experience and trainings offered by the local NGO TAGMARK (an extension of CNFA),  is effectively negotiating prices with input distribution companies and then in turn both selling inputs and offering advice to local small scale farmers.  In that same community, TAGMARK is working with local farmers to increase maize productivity through demonstrating the effectiveness of higher-yielding hybrid seeds and fertilizer usage.  AGRA has supported both of these activities, in close cooperation with WFP. 

Read Co-chairs' Commentary : Day Two in Tanzania

Commentaries from Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman

From March 12-20, 2011, Global Agricultural Development Initiative co-chairs, Catherine Bertini & Dan Glickman, have embarked on a fact-finding trip to Tanzania and Mozambique to visit agricultural development and food security projects. They are blogging on their experiences, key observations, and questions that arise during their travels.  Check out their itinerary.  Stay tuned for more commentaries and you can also submit your questions here.

March 14 – Morogoro, Tanzania

LIVE from Africa:  Targeted Agricultural Investments yield High Results

After a full day of discussions with farmers, researchers, and agro-dealers, it is apparent that modest, strategic investments in productivity-enhancing inputs and training can have transformational results.  Our site visits began in the beautiful Uluguru Mountains and ended with discussions with faculty at Tanzania’s leading agricultural college, Sokoine University.  We found the following items especially notable: 

Key Observations:

• Investments in inputs and training yield big gains - Modest investments in training programs and more widely available inputs can rapidly and dramatically increase the yields and incomes of small scale farmers.  Demonstration projects (carried out by the Tanzania Agriculture Marketing Trust (TAGMARK)) done in collaboration with farmers in Nyandira, Tanzania indicate that usage of hybrid seeds and fertilizer could quadrupled maize production.  Programs focused on post-harvest assistance, led by Rural Urban Development Initiatives (RUDI) are also making important advances.  In Kilombero, farmers receiving assistance on warehouse management, post harvest handling, and quality standards have more than doubled their output per hectare and ability to bring product to market, since the project launched in 2009.  Both TAGMARK, which is linked up to the Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs (CNFA) and RUDI receive support from AGRA, and coordinate with the World Food Programme (WFP).
  

Co-chairs' Commentary: Day One in Tanzania

Commentaries from Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman

From March 12-20, 2011, Global Agricultural Development Initiative co-chairs, Catherine Bertini & Dan Glickman, have embarked on a fact-finding trip to Tanzania and Mozambique to visit agricultural development and food security projects. They are blogging on their experiences, key observations, and questions that arise during their travels.  Check out their itinerary.  Stay tuned for more commentaries and you can also submit your questions here.

March 13 – Dar es Salaam and Morogoro, Tanzania

Reporting LIVE from TANZANIA : Holistic Approach to Agricultural Development

Greetings from Tanzania!  Between our arrival in Dar es Salaam late last night and drive to Morogoro earlier today, we had the opportunity to sit down with leadership from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Tanzania Country Office.  Namanga Ngongi, president, Tesfai Tecle, special advisor to the chairman (both with AGRA) and David Nyange of USAID/Tanzania shared insights on agricultural activities underway in Tanzania and perceptions about how agricultural development in Africa is advancing overall.

Key Observations

New Agricultural Development Approaches are Holistic:
New agricultural development projects are holistic and working to build and strengthen all aspects of the agri-food value chains - to make agriculture more productive, profitable, and sustainable.  For instance, AGRA is marshaling its resources to cultivate “breadbaskets” in Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, and Mozambique, all countries that have the resources to, with the right investments, dramatically increase food surpluses of staple African food crops.  USAID is taking a similar approach with its Feed the Future strategy and focusing on supporting value chains for maize, rice, and horticulture in Tanzania.  We will be visiting these projects later this week and look forward to sharing further details with you.

This Week's Edition of the Global Food for Thought News Brief

 

Please click here to view this week's edition of the Global Food for Thought news brief. 

If you have not signed up to receive Global Food for Thought by email, please do so by clicking here.

 

Please click here to view this week's edition of the Global Food for Thought news brief. 

If you have not signed up to receive Global Food for Thought by email, please do so by clicking here.

Stay Tuned for Daily Commentaries from the Field by our Co-chairs

Commentaries from Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman

Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman, co-chairs of The Chicago Council’s Global Agricultural Development Initiative will embark on their travels to Tanzania and Mozambique. They will post daily commentaries and tweet LIVE from the ground. They are also taking your questions and you can submit them here.