People Putting Food First #115

New on Food First’s website, www.foodfirst.org
--The second issue of our e-newsletter for the African Agroecological Alternatives to the Green Revolution, (AAAGRrrr!) just went out to subscribers. To subscribe, go to our web site and sign up.
--Statement from the parallel conference on food held in Rome: Terra Preta: Forum on the Food Crisis, Climate Change, Agrofuels, and Food Security, and
--Their request for organizations to sign on to their concluding recommendations on the world food crisis—Civil Society Statement on the World Food Emergency

1. Keyhole gardens to fight hunger in Lesotho
2. Water is life!—a basic human right
3. Converting lawns to organic gardens—one garden at a time

1. Keyhole gardens to fight hunger in Lesotho

In the tiny African nation of Lesotho, which is completely surrounded by South Africa, locals are intelligently and skillfully producing food for their families and communities. Lesotho is one of the most mountainous countries in Africa with crop yields often hampered by intense heat, severe drought, and heavy rains that wash away crops. The growing season is relatively short and roughly one-third of the people of Lesotho are malnourished. With food prices surging, most people in Lesotho are unable to buy the imported food available in markets.

Keyhole gardens are a simple innovation helping to combat malnourishment. The gardens look like a keyhole from above, built waist-high with a wedge missing so that the elderly can easily tend to crops. The gardens are constructed with onsite resources such as stones to build the walls. Beds are filled with layers of manure to add nitrates, cans to provide iron, ash for potassium, and straw to trap moisture. The resulting rich soil is highly productive year-round regardless of rainfall patterns. People grow nutritious vegetables including carrots, onions, spinach, tomato, beets and lettuce using the vegetable scraps for compost and recycling domestic water to water the crops.

Food from these gardens has helped many families to ward off hunger. Some families give extra food to neighbors or sell it to buy clothing and school supplies for their children. Families are also teaching others how to construct and maintain keyhole gardens. In schools, children are being trained to build the gardens and to manage and harvest crops. The gardens are becoming increasingly popular in the lowlands of Lesotho as children and communities demonstrate their tremendous capacity to grow food.

With one of the highest rates of AIDS in the world, these manageable keyhole gardens are a valuable source of nutrition. However, while the gardens ease malnutrition, significant policy changes are needed to improve more people’s access to adequate nutritious food.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7432972.stm
http://www.graspr.com/videos/How-to-make-a-Keyhole-Garden-1

2. Water is life—a basic human right!

Virginia Setshedi, President of the Coalition against Privatization explained at a conference in San Francisco California, that on April 30, 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa, in a historic, ground-breaking judgment, the Johannesburg High Court declared that the City of Johannesburg’s forcible installation of prepaid water meters in Phiri (Soweto) to be both unlawful and unconstitutional. Judge Tsoka further ordered that the limitation of free basic water to the present 6 kilolitres per household per month be set aside and that the City of Johannesburg and Johannesburg Water must supply Phiri residents with 50 litres per person per day. Furthermore, the court declared that the choice given to residents of either a prepaid meter or a standpipe for water provision in Phiri is also unlawful and directed the City to provide residents of Phiri the option of an ordinary credit metered water supply. Judge M.P. Tsoka also determined that the City should bear all the legal costs of the applicants since 2006. Based on the Constitution, the Coalition is celebrating the High Court recognition of water as a human right. Most of the members of the Coalition are women, and they encourage others to act with determination to organize and take control of their common wealth!

3. Converting lawns to organic gardens—one garden at a time

Imagine community supported agriculture in the community. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Community Roots challenges the assumption that commercial-scale vegetable production requires the mass of land only available in rural settings, as it has successfully transformed a number of neighborhood yards into bountiful organic gardens.

Kipp Nash founded Community Roots as a way to foster connection within communities by weaving together traditional ways of rural life into an urban setting and utilizing valuable resources to produce local, sustainable models of food production.

Since its inception in 2005, Community Roots has grown to include eight production gardens, totaling just under a half acre, with more in the works. In exchange for use of the land, Community Roots, transforms the space into a highly productive mini-farm, plants and tends a variety of vegetables, and harvests the produce, which is enough to feed 25 families. The bounty is shared between the landowner and Community Roots who then markets their share a number of ways, including at the Boulder County Farmers Market and through community supported agriculture shares.

The donor of the first plot was one of Kipp’s neighbors, followed by another, and then another, with each successive donor inspired to participate by the transformation seen in the previous. Following on its success in establishing an urban multi-plot farm and neighborhood-based CSA in the Martin Acres neighborhood of Boulder, Community Roots is also extending its projects to include CSA Outreach, which will involve low-income, food insecure families in the CSA program; Community Fruits, which will work with homeowners to harvest and distribute under-utilized fruit from residential trees; and another Community Roots Food Project in the Newlands neighborhood of Boulder.

For more information, visit the Community Roots website: http://www.communityrootsboulder.com/.
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This issue of People Putting Food First was compiled by Zach Zimbalist, Leonor Hurtado and Beth Martin.