How a North Carolina Farmer is Moving Toward a Sustainable Future

The city of Quito’s Participatory Urban Agriculture Program creates sustainable access to food by providing land and agricultural training, and it prioritizes empowering vulnerable populations, particularly women.

An impoverished corner of Hawaii may not sound like the foundation of a successful agriculture endeavor, but local youth have proved otherwise. MA'O translating into youth food garden aims to show college-aged youth a way onto a different path by teaching them sustainable and organic farm practices alongside lessons in how to be leaders in all areas of life.

Arvin-Edison Water Storage District has spent decades diverting imported river water into spreading ponds to recharge its aquifer for later pumping, a strategy credited with helping halt past groundwater declines and raise levels over time.

Kashmiri farmers are using traditional farming techniques in degraded wetlands to revive lotus stem cultivation. One farmer’s restored two-hectare plot produced 12 quintals of lotus stem in the first season, earning approximately $1,600. By 2023, at least 15 households across three villages had successfully restored their own plots using the same methods. Farmers converting waterlogged fields now earn between $1,600-$2,200 per hectare per season.

Community-led urban farms in Jakarta empower residents to transform underused city spaces like alleyways and campus grounds into productive local food sources. These initiatives often blend traditional gardening with community organizing, educational outreach, and sometimes smart technology or agricultural research to improve food access, enhance green space, and foster local resilience.

Bayero University Center for Dryland Agriculture’s Tissue Culture Lab empowers local farmers with advanced research and technology to adapt to climate change and increase food security and nutrition. So far, 22 communities have benefited from the Lab’s expertise, leading to increased food production and fewer health problems caused by inadequate diets.

Farmers living near the coast in India are turning to rooftop farming as cyclones lead to flooding that makes agricultural fields unusable. The Association for Social and Humanitarian Action taught local women how to grow food in tubs or sacks with compost, and those farmers trained others.

The Fish Friendly Farming (FFF) program aims to alleviate the impacts of farming and ranching on local waterways, specifically local salmon and trout populations. The program works with area farmers to become certified and enact the best practices regarding soil health and erosion management to prevent too much sediment from entering nearby waterways. So far, the program has certified more than 280,000 acres of farms across 10 counties. In Napa Valley alone, about 90% of all vineyards are now FFF certified.

The Indian government’s Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change’s new climate adaptation program is designed to enhance climate resilience and rural farmers are adapting new agricultural practices to better resist the effects of climate change. So far, nearly 1,500 farmers across 48 villages have begun implementing these new sustainable farming practices and have seen not only an environmental benefit but financial gain as well.

Nuup helps smallholder farmers in Mexico succeed through all steps of the value chain by helping them access funding, connecting them to agricultural markets, and optimizing their performance with technology and education.