Nourishing the Planet TV: Turning an Invasive Species into a Sustainable Livelihood

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

In this week’s episode, Nourishing the Planet research intern, Elena Davert, explains how, in Kenya, the potentially devastating invasive plant, the water hyacinth, is being transformed into a boon for local livelihoods. With the help of organizations like Village Volunteers, farmers living on the shore of Lake Victoria are harvesting the water hyacinth to produce biodegradable furniture, fertilizer, and other commercial products to simultaneously clear the water of the dangerous plant and improve local livelihoods.

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Nourishing the Planet TV: Handling Pests with Care Instead of Pesticide

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet project.

In this week’s episode, Nourishing the Planet research intern, Matt Styslinger, explains how farmers in Cambodia, with training from organizations supported by the UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its Regional Vegetable Integrated Pest Management Program, are combining various strategies and practices to grow healthy crops without the aid of expensive and hazardous chemical inputs. This alternative approach is called Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

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Putting Classroom Theory into Practice

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

"The idea was to bring a lot of expertise from the corporate world to help young social start ups," says Fred Rose when asked about his motivation for founding the Acara Institute two years ago.  As part of the Minnesota University’s Institute on the Environment, Acara has developed a classroom curriculum for universities in the U.S. and in India that challenges students to think creatively about how to use private businesses to solve pressing global issues such as hunger and poverty. But instead of  the semester culminating in an exam or a paper, Acara provides students the necessary tools to turn their best class work into reality.

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Nourishing the Planet TV: Beating the Heat to Reduce Post Harvest Waste

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

In this week’s episode, Nourishing the Planet research intern, Abby Massey, introduces a simple but effective way to beat the heat and reduce post harvest loss due to heat. In the Sudan and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the non-profit organization, Practical Action, is using clay, concrete, sand and water to create small "refrigerators" to preserve fruits and vegetables and improve diets and incomes.

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Turning an Invasive Species into a Livelihood

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

In Kenya, for the over 5,000 people living in rural communities on or near its shore, Lake Victoria—the largest body of freshwater in Africa—is a life line. It is the main source of water for bathing, drinking, and cooking in the area and its fish populations provide both protein and income to families. "But the shores of Lake Victoria are choking," says Shana Greene, founder and director of Village Volunteers, a Seattle-based organization that partners with rural communities around the world to create environmentally sustainable solutions for hunger and poverty.

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Texting on the Farm: Mobile Technology Provides Farmers with Useful Information in India

by NourishingthePlanet

According to the U.N. Population Division, over 70 percent of Indians live in rural areas and over half of all Indians are farmers. Yet access to technology and information in many areas is limited, meaning farmers are often left uninformed and at the mercy of erratic weather and disease and pest outbreaks. And even in good growing conditions, farmers may not have access to price information that could help them negotiate with buyers or decide which markets to bring their products to.

But across rural India, mobile phones are quickly becoming an indispensable tool for farmers, helping to shrink the information gap.

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/...

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Getting the Most from Crops, in the Field and at the Market

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet

In Cameroon, one of the foods that grows best is cassava. But farmers struggle with low yields because of pests and diseases that damage crops, making each harvest much more labor intensive than they are worth. "Farmers are spending more on planting materials and field maintenance to grow cassava and they are unable to make profit from the poor harvests," says Emmanuel Njukwe, Chief of Service for the Crop Improvement and Utilization Unit at The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). "They are fighting an expensive battle against pests and diseases."

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Giving Farmers a Reason to Stay

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

While the coast of The Gambia is a popular—and economically thriving— tourist destination for European vacationers, the inland portion of the country provides little means for young men to make a living. Many leave their villages for the coast or even other countries, in hopes of making more money in urban areas

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Nourishing the Planet TV: Reducing Post-Harvest Waste

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

In this week’s episode, research intern, Matt Styslinger discusses how in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 239 million people are hungry, more than a quarter of the food is lost before it can be eaten due to waste. Innovations in improved food storage can be an important tool for reducing world  hunger. From hermetically sealed bags developed by Purdue University to metallic silos in Afghanistan, innovations to improve food storage and reduce food waste are helping to improve food security around the globe.

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NtP TV: Makutano Junction

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

In this regular video series, we bring you images, interviews and more in-depth information about different agricultural innovations. Get to know the NtP team and the innovations we are highlighting regularly, and stay tuned for more NtP TV in the coming weeks!

In this week's episode, Nourishing the Planet research Intern, Janeen Madan, introduces an entertaining way to spread information about agricultural innovations, health, politics, and other important issues: the television soap opera. Broadcast throughout sub-Saharan Africa and with 7.2 million viewers in Kenya alone, Mediae Trust’s "Makutano Junction" is doing just that, proving to be a soap opera that people love to watch and learn from.

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Energy COOL Live Event: Progressive Automotive X-Prize

by A Siegel

As I write this, the count-down is on for the Progressive Automotive X-Prize winners announcement. This is a live event.  

I had been planning, with the award announcement, to take the time to do a post on this prize, the process, and the winners.  In short, this Prize (with 12 finalists of 111 teams with 137 entrants) seeks to help drive, with a $10 million award, forward more energy efficient automobiles.

Why this quick post? And a post that will be a running commentary?  Because I had not realized that the award process is actually taking place in Washington, DC, 'around the corner from me'.  And, well, if it is hard to get to the Historical Society of Washington in just a few minutes the car winners will be on Capitol Hill this afternoon.

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Water Out of Thin Air

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, people are forced to travel long distances and spend hours at a time collecting the water needed for cooking and drinking from far away streams or wells. But the residents of Cabazane, South Africa have found a much less labor intensive alternative. They use gravity and let water come to them.

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Staying Tuned for More Innovations

by NourishingthePlanet

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet

Listen to Radio Fanaka Fana and Radio Jigiya, in the Fana and Zégoua regions of Mali, and you are much more likely to hear tips for improving compost piles and soil quality than you are pop music hits or current events. That’s because the station is participating in Farm Radio International’s Africa Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI), a project to test the viability of using radio as a tool for spreading agricultural information to farmers throughout Africa.

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