Stories tagged: wfp

Nominations Now Open for the 2022 World Food Prize!

Celebrate the accomplishments of those who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world, by nominating an individual or individuals for the 2022 World Food Prize! 

Nominations are now open for the 2022 World Food Prize, which has been referred to as the “Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture.” The prize is a $250,000 award formally presented at the Laureate Award Ceremony in mid-October in conjunction with the Borlaug Dialogue. The deadline to nominate is May 1, 2022.

Since 1987, the prize has been awarded annually to more than 50 Laureates from all over the world who have helped advance human development by increasing the quantity, quality, availability of, or access to, food through creative interventions. Over the years, Laureates have come from a wide range of fields, ranging from plant science and nutrition to natural resource conservation and food technology. You can watch last year’s award ceremony below:

 

 

Nominations criteria

The World Food Prize Foundation is looking for a specific, exceptional individual achievement. This means that it is imperative that the impact is measurable in terms of improved nutrition, health or wellbeing – or in the form of reduced hunger, poverty or suffering. While the prize is open to anyone, the Foundation especially welcomes women and nominees from the Global South. And with that in mind, people of any age can be nominated – but they must be in sufficiently good health to be able to accept the prize in person, should they win. 

Finally, while the prize has been awarded to multiple individuals in the past, it is primarily intended for one person only. Any exception to this rule requires that each individual’s contribution to the achievement can be clearly demonstrated.

How to submit a nomination

First and foremost, it is important to note that potential nominees cannot nominate themselves. Instead, they must be nominated by their peers or colleagues who are looking to shine a light on their contributions. Anyone who is interested in doing so can submit a nomination here

Early next year, the World Food Prize Foundation will hold informational webinars for anyone who is interested in nominating a candidate. These webinars are excellent opportunities to ask questions and learn more about the nomination process in general. 

Anyone who is interested in learning more can have a look at a recording of this past year’s webinar here, which outlines how to submit a nomination, and addresses questions on the required documentation, how long applications are valid, how to update applicant information, and more.   

Further information about the World Food Prize Foundation can be found here. To learn more about the nomination process, criteria or to submit a nomination, visit this page.

Edouard Nizeyimana: Purchasing Pulses to Support Women Producers

What does one bag of beans mean in the global effort to end hunger? It turns out, a lot. 2016 is the International Year of Pulses. It is also the first full year in which we are officially working toward the Sustainable Development Goals, which set an ambitious but attainable target to end hunger by 2030. An important part of this is improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers – especially women. We have found a way of doing this that also strengthens resilience and improves nutrition: buying more beans and peas.

As the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, the World Food Programme (WFP) reaches an average of 80 million people each year with life-saving food assistance. We also work to eradicate the root causes of hunger; one way we do this is by sourcing our food in ways that build stronger and more inclusive food systems.

In 2008, we launched Purchase for Progress (P4P) to explore how to source food more directly from the small-scale farmers. Purchasing earlier in the supply chain means a great deal of logistical challenges. To address these we have worked with a wide variety of partners, especially host governments and other United Nations agencies – such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) – to help farmers produce more, reduce their post-harvest losses and work together as businesses capable of dealing with everything from formal contracts to transportation. To date we have purchased over US$190 million worth of food from smallholder farmers, and have a goal to purchase 10 per cent of all our food within the next three years.

Sample types and qualities of pulses used at a training session in Ghana. Copyright: WFP

Sample types and qualities of pulses used at a training session in Ghana. Copyright: WFP

Supporting women farmers

These are all major steps toward forging more sustainable and inclusive food systems. But food systems must be inclusive not only of smallholder farmers in general, but women farmers in particular. Women farmers play a crucial role in agriculture – especially food production. But women’s labour is often invisible, unpaid and undervalued, and they usually have less access to productive assets than men. Plus, in many households, decisions about the production and marketing of crops are made by men. This leaves women providing a great deal of labour without reaping the rewards, and without the economic and social empowerment that comes with financial stability.

Our focus on supporting women farmers under P4P has taught us a great deal. We have helped women to access time and labour-saving equipment, such as cattle and mechanical shellers, to lighten their workload. We have also carried out awareness-raising efforts on the importance of gender equality, and held training to teach them to read and to increase their confidence. We have seen women’s participation in membership and leadership positions increase.

Despite progress made, we still face challenges ensuring that women are able to market the crops they produce. During the pilot implementation of P4P, it was discovered that one of the keys to unlocking women’s potential to participate in sales was a simple one: changing which crops we purchase.

Niébé is a local form of cowpea largely farmed by women in West Africa. Copyright: WFP/Eliza Warren-Shriner

Niébé is a local form of cowpea largely farmed by women in West Africa. Copyright: WFP/Eliza Warren-Shriner

Purchasing pulses

In many places, decisions about who produces and markets which crop are made based upon traditional gender roles. For example, in some parts of West Africa, maize and sorghum are considered “men’s crops”, while women produce pulses like cowpeas, beans and pigeon peas. Initially we were buying “men’s crops,” but we listened when women told us that they wanted a way of diversifying their incomes to provide additional benefits for their families.

In West Africa, a local variety of cowpea called niébé is frequently produced by women farmers on small plots for household consumption. Niébé is difficult for smallholders to produce for sale – the seeds can be costly and storing them is challenging as they are prone to infestation. But with training from WFP and partners, farmers are now better able to produce niébé commercially. In some countries, women were provided with Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS) bags which are a cost-effective solution to reduce infestation in cowpeas. In Ghana, multiplication efforts have brought down the cost of seeds.

Many benefits

In Burkina Faso, 96% of participants in cowpea sales to WFP are women. Azeta Sawadogo is one of the farmers who have benefitted – achieving her lifelong dream to own a bicycle.

Azeta poses with the bike she was able to purchase thanks to her niébé sales. Copyright: WFP

 

I feel proud of myself and the group of women I work with in our decision to sell cowpeas to WFP. We are now admired in the village because even male heads of households do not own a bicycle

In Zambia, almost half of the pulses used in school meals come from women farmers’ organizations. These women are looking beyond WFP to a variety of other buyers. With their increased incomes, they can invest in building new houses and sending their children to school.

And pulses have many other benefits. Pulses are high in nutritional value – and in some cases, efforts to strengthen agricultural production of pulses have been coupled with nutrition-sensitive messaging – teaching farmers such as Awa Tessougué the importance of eating niébé at home for improved nutrition. Pulses are also resilient and environmentally friendly – they are generally drought-resistant and “fix” nitrogen in soil, meaning that they return the nutrients to the soil that can be stripped by the production of other crops.

In building inclusive and effective food systems we must provide women with the tools to take part fully in decision-making processes. In doing so, we must listen to their needs and desires, and continue to learn better ways of supporting them to benefit from their agricultural work. There are many potential solutions to the challenges women face, and a great deal more work to be done. Purchasing more pulses may be only one of these solutions, but each bag of cowpeas is a good start.

From Food Aid to Food Assistance with Ertharin Cousin, World Food Program

For the second episode in our brand new series of Farming First TV interviews, we spoke to Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), for an update on the Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative.

Launched in 2008, P4P enables low-income farmers to supply their crops to WFP operations. Cousin describes how WFP serves as a “catalyst market” in areas where there are no commercial buyers for farmers to sell to.

Cousin stresses the importance of what happens next: “We shouldn’t always buy from them because the reality is that if WFP is the only purchaser then it’s only a program. It only becomes a sustainable and durable economic change for those farmers if we can substitute WFP with either a commercial market buyer or a government buyer.”

In Ethiopia for example, the livelihoods of tens of thousands of farmers have been improved by a collaboration between P4P and Farming First supporter Technoserve, which promotes business solutions for combating poverty.
Cousin says the WFP is increasingly being replaced by other purchasers. “That’s what we’re seeing and that’s why we get really excited about ‘Purchase for Progress’, because it’s made a difference across the entire value chain in a durable way.”

Watch our video for the full interview with Ertharin Cousin.

Averting Food Crisis: Improving Smallholder Agriculture

Global food prices have returned to the spotlight in recent weeks, owing to the devastating drought in the United States that has caused crop prices to climb. The global food price index produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) rose by 6 percent to 213 points in July, causing concern that we could be heading towards another crisis similar to that of 2007/8 that pushed 44 million people into poverty.

But what can be done to prevent this from happening? An immediate reaction from producer countries may well be to impose export bans, to protect food availability in their own countries. Director-General of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Shengenn Fan, warns against this. In a recent statement he said:

Countries must stay away from imposing export restrictions when food prices increase because they lead to tighter market conditions and panic purchases by food-importing countries, thereby exacerbating food price hikes.

The production of biofuels has also fallen under scrutiny, with FAO Director-General Jose Graziano Da Silva speaking out in the Financial Times last week. Currently, about 40 percent of total maize production in the United States is used to produce ethanol. The US Department of Agriculture’s forecast for maize production is at its lowest level since 2006/07, sparking debate as to whether the mandates in the US and EU should be relaxed in times of food shortage. Da Silva commented:

While the current situation is precarious and could deteriorate further if unfavourable weather conditions persist, it is not a crisis yet. Countries and the UN are better equipped than in 2007-08 to face high food prices, with the introduction of its Agricultural Market Information System, which promotes co-ordination of policy responses. Risks are high and the wrong responses to the current situation could create it. It is vitally important that any unilateral policy reactions from countries, whether importers or exporters, do not further destabilise the situation.

When food prices rise sharply, it is those in the developing world, who spend a large percentage of their income on food that suffer most. The following infographic, produced by the World Food Programme demonstrates varying income expenditure on food, and what happens when the poor are forced to spend more on food: they are left with barely any income for health, education and shelter.

It is therefore critical we avert another food crisis, and research shows we have it within our power to do this. Vulnerable families in the developing world need not rely on industrial powerhouses such as the United States for their crops, they could be self-reliant, and produce enough food not only to feed themselves, but their continent.  As Marianne Bänziger, Deputy Director-General at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) recently commented:

There are many developing countries where productivity could be increased to reduce overreliance on imports and benefit rural poor and development in those countries at large. The potential for improvement is enormous. Providing farmers with knowhow and improved agronomy, seed, and storage methods can produce dramatic effects both for individual families, entire countries, and the globe as a whole.

To enable smallholder farmers to rise to this challenge, it is imperative that we invest in the infrastructure necessary in rural areas, and improve access to stress-tolerant seeds and fertilizer. Weather-based index crop insurance mechanisms that protect farmers from adverse climatic events, and extension services that train farmers in agroforestry, crop diversity and smart irrigation, can all play critically important roles in creating a resilient new crop of farmers that will stave off hunger for future generations.

 

UN Agencies Team Up to Help Predict Future Food Shortages

Two UN groups are teaming up to help identify and respond to areas likely to be impacted by food shortages in the future.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has agreed to share data concerning floods, hurricanes, mudslides, drought and other forms of severe weather with the World Food Programme (WFP).

This information can help the WFP provide better and faster assistance to those living in areas impacted by climate-related disasters:

Severe weather, brought on by climate change, has a direct impact on people’s food security. Floods, hurricanes, mudslides, drought and other weather events destroy crops, homes, and lives – increasing hunger among the world’s poorest people.

Climate change is accentuating the suffering caused by political and economic instabilities in many countries.