State of the World 2011 Innovations that Nourish The Planet

Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2011 Shows Agriculture Innovation
Is Key to Reducing Poverty, Stabilizing Climate

Report provides a roadmap for food security and agricultural investment, revealing
15 high- and low-tech solutions that are helping to reduce hunger and poverty in Africa 
 

 

New York, 2011—Worldwatch Institute released its report State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, which spotlights successful agricultural innovations and unearths major successes in preventing food waste, building resilience to climate change, and strengthening farming in cities. You can buy the book too:

The report provides a roadmap for increased agricultural investment and more-efficient ways to alleviate global hunger and poverty. Drawing from the world’s leading agricultural experts and from hundreds of innovations that are already working on the ground, the report outlines 15 proven, environmentally sustainable prescriptions.

 

“The progress showcased through this report will inform governments, policymakers, NGOs, and donors that seek to curb hunger and poverty, providing a clear roadmap for expanding or replicating these successes elsewhere,” said Worldwatch Institute President Christopher Flavin. “We need the world’s influencers of agricultural development to commit to longstanding support for farmers, who make up 80 percent of the population in Africa.”

 

State of the World 2011 comes at a time when many global hunger and food security initiatives—such as the Obama administration’s Feed the Future program, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)—can benefit from new insight into environmentally sustainable projects that are already working to alleviate hunger and poverty.  

 

Nearly a half-century after the Green Revolution, a large share of the human family is still chronically hungry. While investment in agricultural development by governments, international lenders, and foundations has escalated in recent years, it is still nowhere near what is needed to help the 925 million people who are undernourished. Since the mid-1980s when agricultural funding was at its height, agriculture's share of global development aid has fallen from over 16 percent to just 4 percent today.

 

In 2008, $1.7 billion dollars in official development assistance was provided to support agricultural projects in Africa, based on statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—a miniscule amount considering the vital return on investment. Given the current global economic conditions, investments are not likely to increase in the coming year. Much of the more recently pledged funding has yet to be raised, and existing funding is not being targeted efficiently to reach the poor farmers of Africa.  

 

“The international community has been neglecting entire segments of the food system in its efforts to reduce hunger and poverty,” said Danielle Nierenberg, co-director of Worldwatch’s Nourishing the Planet project. “The solutions won’t necessarily come from producing more food, but from changing what children eat in schools, how foods are processed and marketed, and what sorts of food businesses we are investing in.”

 

Serving locally raised crops to school children, for example, has proven to be an effective hunger- and poverty-reducing strategy in many African nations, and has strong parallels to successful farm-to-cafeteria programs in the United States and Europe. Moreover, “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,” according to Brian Halweil, Nourishing the Planet co-director.

 

State of the World 2011 draws from hundreds of case studies and first-person examples to offer solutions to reducing hunger and poverty. These include:  
 

• In 2007, some 6,000 women in The Gambia organized into the TRY Women’s Oyster Harvesting producer association, creating a sustainable co-management plan for the local oyster fishery to prevent overharvesting and exploitation. Oysters and fish are an important, low-cost source of protein for the population, but current production levels have led to environmental degradation and to changes in land use over the last 30 years. The government is working with groups like TRY to promote less-destructive methods and to expand credit facilities to low-income producers to stimulate investment in more-sustainable production.
   
• In Kibera, Nairobi, the largest slum in Kenya, more than 1,000 women farmers are growing “vertical” gardens in sacks full of dirt poked with holes, feeding their families and communities. These sacks have the potential to feed thousands of city dwellers while also providing a sustainable and easy-to-maintain source of income for urban farmers. With more than 60 percent of Africa’s population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, such methods may be crucial to creating future food security. Currently, some 33 percent of Africans live in cities, and 14 million more migrate to urban areas each year. Worldwide, some 800 million people engage in urban agriculture, producing 15–20 percent of all food.
   
• Pastoralists in South Africa and Kenya are preserving indigenous varieties of livestock that are adapted to the heat and drought of local conditions—traits that will be crucial as climate extremes on the continent worsen. Africa has the world’s largest area of permanent pasture and the largest number of pastoralists, with 15–25 million people dependent on livestock.
   
• The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) is using interactive community plays to engage women farmers, community leaders, and policymakers in an open dialogue about gender equity, food security, land tenure, and access to resources. Women in sub-Saharan Africa make up at least 75 percent of agricultural workers and provide 60–80 percent of the labor to produce food for household consumption and sale, so it is crucial that they have opportunities to express their needs in local governance and decision-making. This entertaining and amicable forum makes it easier for them to speak openly.
   
• Uganda’s Developing Innovations in School Cultivation (DISC) program is integrating indigenous vegetable gardens, nutrition information, and food preparation into school curriculums to teach children how to grow local crop varieties that will help combat food shortages and revitalize the country’s culinary traditions. An estimated 33 percent of African children currently face hunger and malnutrition, which could affect some 42 million children by 2025. School nutrition programs that don’t simply feed children, but also inspire and teach them to become the farmers of the future, are a huge step toward improving food security.

The State of the World 2011 report is accompanied by other informational materials including briefing documents, summaries, an innovations database, videos, and podcasts, all of which are available at www.NourishingthePlanet.org. The project’s findings are being disseminated to a wide range of agricultural stakeholders, including government ministries, agricultural policymakers, farmer and community networks, and the increasingly influential non-governmental environmental and development communities. 

In conducting this research, Worldwatch’s Nourishing the Planet project received unprecedented access to major international research institutions, including those in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) system. The team also interacted extensively with farmers and farmers’ unions as well as with the banking and investment communities. 

 

The Worldwatch Institute and the Nourishing the Planet project are gratefully supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and additional foundations, governments, and institutions including the Rockefeller and Surdna Foundations, the United Nations Foundation, the Goldman Environmental Prize, the Shared Earth Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund, the Winslow Foundation, and many more.  

Purchasing information:

State of the World 2011 sells for $19.95 + shipping & handling / £14.99 + P&P.

• It can be purchased via the Worldwatch website at http://www.worldwatch.org/sow11, by e-mailing wwpub@worldwatch.org, by calling toll-free (+1) 877-539-9946 (in the U.S.) or (+1) 301-747-2340 (from overseas), or by faxing (+1) 301-567-9553 with ISBN number 9780393338805.
• The book is published outside of the US, Canada and India by Earthscan and can be purchased at www.earthscan.co.uk/sow2011 or by calling +44(0)12 5630 2699 with ISBN number 9781849713528.

About the Worldwatch Institute:

Worldwatch is an independent research organization based in Washington, D.C. that works on energy, resource, and environmental issues. The Institute’s State of the World report is published annually in more than 20 languages. For more information, visit www.worldwatch.org.

Those Three Little Words

“Author’s Clean Copy”

Are those not the three most beautiful words an author can hear?! 

OK, “I Love You” is right up there. I grant you that.

But when you think about it, love is inextricably linked to writing and producing a book.

There is the passion and respect for the subject matter itself, for the featured protagonists – in my case the master chefs – along with their gardeners and/or farmers; the love of their culinary craft, the love of the art of the garden, the love of the Long Island landscape and sea-scape, the love of the project itself: the photography by Jennifer Calais Smith and my garden art renderings that both help tell this amazing story. 
And of course there is love for the editors and publishers who helped bring all this passion to the printed page. I love my Quayside, Voyageur Press editors: Kari and Michael.

I just received, via email attachment, the Author’s Clean Copy manuscript. All text and photo and art selection must be completed to go to the printer by February 1^st deadline I was told.

It is nothing short of thrilling. 

As anyone who has ever had a book published, it’s common knowledge that the gestation process is very slow.

Glacial, in fact.

But not when you are in the thick of it: working on the book is almost an all-consuming effort.  There is the research, the interviewing, the writing…

The book is a lover that steals your heart – and your time…

But for now, just for a sweet, sweet interlude, I want to embrace this moment.

This manuscript.

I want to celebrate!

And to celebrate the addition of two men who have brought great joy to my life J

First, I honor the good fortune of having secured my number-one candidate to write the Foreword for the book.  I had solicited knowledgeable people for suggestions, but I knew I only had eyes for Brian Halweil.

My research and following of Brian’s work whispered to me he was the perfect fit to introduce you, the reader, to the special world of Long Island’s culinary artists and master chefs and to the farmers and fishermen and food artisans and to the astonishing LI landscape.  He is talented, smart, dedicated and is an advocate for food and hunger causes. I am in simpatico.

Brian is the Editor of Edible East End Magazine.

http://www.edibleeastend.com/

He is also a senior researcher and Co-Project Director for  “State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet” a seminal work from the Worldwatch Institute, Vision for a Sustainable World that reports on global hunger and agricultural issues.

To say it’s a must-read is an understatement.  This is real journalism, not repeat Tweets. 

It is a most important book. You will be enlightened – and moved… that “a child dies every six seconds” is an unbearable tragedy….

Please help support Brian and his colleague’s great work, including Danielle Nierenberg, 

Anna Lappé, Small Planet Institute and Stephanie Hanson, One Acre Fund.

Do attend this most important book launch for “Nurturing the Planet” Wednesday, January 12^th at 10:00 AM in New York City at the WNYC Greene Space at 44 Charlton Street. 

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6557

I will be there, along with some guests.

Worldwatch is offering a sneak preview online, with a link to Chapter 1. 

But buy the book!  

The other man that came into my life recently is the photo editor and publisher from Voyageur Press, Michael Dregni. 

Michael is a New York Times best-selling author too. He’s written a number of acclaimed books including Harley and the chart-topping, “Gypsy Jazz: In Search of Django Reinhardt and The Soul of Gypsy Swing”

While Michael was a lucky strike extra for me, having been assigned by the publishing company, I couldn’t help feel a connection.

That is because there are a number of threads in my life that, taken together, make quite a nice cloth --or bridge to Michael’s work.

When I went to school in Switzerland, I spent the better part of one summer with my Danish boyfriend in Copenhagen where I worked in the Huset where a large part of the entertainment was American Jazz. I always felt Europeans are much more appreciative of our only – along with the Blues – truly American musical art form.  I helped the director there to write letter to many of the aging, black jazz musicians to get them to perform and to secure interviews for a book he hoped to publish about American Jazz. Michael was his name too, I recall, and he told me that due to the Red Scare and racism, too many of these talented musicians never got a chance to tell their story – and he knew they had a lot to contribute to the art world and to culture.

The next thread is my brother is a musician and plays a lot of terrific jazz.  Further, he arranged for the family to go and see Django Reinhardt when the famous musician performed at New York City’s iconic Tavern on the Green.  My beloved father, George, who died too soon on August 29^th in 2008, thoroughly enjoyed the music and the talent of Django and frequently recalled the event with joy.  

And anything that made my father happy, was a bonded seal of approval for me…

And the last thread is that my husband owns and does love his Harley motorcycle. So the This Old Harley book Michael wrote and produced was the cherry on top of personal links…

You can see a full listing of Michael’s books and purchase here:

http://www.biblio.com/michael-dregni~473182~author

I am very superstitious. The fact that Brian and Michael had some pre-existing meaning to me, confirmed it was destiny.  A good sign that would bring good things.

Author’s Edit

I asked my husband to print out the manuscript.  Even though I will do the Author’s Edits in the Word document, I thought it would be kinda’ cool, somewhat easier and I daresay, decadent, to have the actual manuscript to hold and hug and work from. 

It is indeed. 

The only thing was, when I learned the clean copy is 176 pages, I told him to forget the paper copy.  “Too late,” he replied.

So now I have my jewel of a manuscript to touch and tote around and edit.

In front of the fire with the snow blowin’ like a snow globe outside, I can fantasize about the magical world of what I always thought a writer’s world could be like.

Even if it’s just for a few nights.  Even if it’s illusionary.  We all need our dreams…

Back in the world of kitchen, I did begin the cooking the book’s recipes provided by the chefs. 

I don’t know if I mentioned it previously, but the guidelines I gave to the chefs as to what kind of recipes to offer for the book were a Signature dish  - something they are known for – the menu item that customers will ask for time and again. That they will leave home for to eat. That they will introduce family and friends to, as in “You MUST have Chef’s ___!  Fill in the dish here…

The other guidelines were a family or cultural heritage recipe.  I was thinking perhaps the chef grew up with a grandmother or father’s stuffed cabbage or peach cobbler or stuffed ziti or…

Then there was a request for a seasonal recipe – and I emphasized it didn’t or shouldn’t be the default summer recipe.  It’s much more challenging to find a best of breed winter or early spring recipe.

And finally, if the chef could create a new, never-before recipe creation just for the book – that would be very special.

But ultimately, I told the chefs the recipes they were providing was their choice. 

I was so grateful and honored they were taking the time to do this..

I know I am already behind my planned schedule to prepare and cook a recipe from the book every week.  Maybe it was the holiday’s that set me back.

I’m trying.

For no real reason, except I so love their food – and the two of them --I started with the recipes from 18 Bay Restaurant’s Elizabeth Ronzetti and Adam Kopels. 

They are exciting and dedicated and curious chefs – always pushing the boundaries for taste, purity and fresh, local ingredients.

Their fabulous recipe entries for the book:

Signature: BBQ striped bass fin

Seasonal: Black bow tie pasta with local squid and guy lok

Family Heritage: Immaculata’s stuffed peppers  (How cute is this?!)

New: Roasted razor clams with Chinese long beans and fresh chilies

Last week I make the BBQ striped bass fin.  We have a formidable BrevilleÒ panini cooker we got from Williams-Sonoma last year and it BBQ’s too! 

It’s a great cooking tool and I should use it more often. 

It’s like the front line of Notre Dame’s “Fighting Irish”: solid and consistent.

The striped bass was delicious. By the time it got to the table. 

Both Maria – my garden design client who is a fabulous cook – and who graciously agreed to be a cooking partner in this culinary trial adventure, had some real fun with the fish….

The striped bass fin was by turns an exotic yet simple dish to prepare.  I love the juxtaposition. 

The culinary crossroads were never tastier…

Stay tuned for next entry.

I made Immaculata’s stuffed peppers tonight.

Cheers and bon appetit!