Jakarta's Urban Farms Come To The Rescue Of Food-Insecure Residents

The Viet Nam Farmers Union rolled out a train-the-trainer program focused on encouraging rice farmers in Vietnam to take up more sustainable practices. This style of training helps farmers overcome any hesitation towards trying new methods by allowing them to learn from their peers and see the success of demonstration plots.

With support and training from the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund's World Food Program, an association of roughly 150 women in Matagelema, Sierra Leone have begun irrigating and farming inland valley swamps there for the first time. They are among more than 4,000 farmers now cultivating in the country's swamps, which provide a higher crop yield than upland farming and are located farther from conflict zones with the region's rutile miners.

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.

Algaculture offers a sustainable and empowering alternative to rice farming in coastal areas of India threatened by sea level rise. With the assistance of The Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research and the South Asian Forum for Environment, women engage in algae farming training workshops. Harvesting algae like a crop provides a vital source of additional income to women, who are often the caretakers of their family.

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.

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.

In the Indian state of Bihar, women-led self-help groups are challenging traditional gender norms and saving money to buy and install solar irrigation pumps. The pumps increase the local agricultural capacity by providing a cleaner, more affordable alternative to the diesel pumps typically used to combat water scarcity in the region.

After they were socially, economically, and politically forced from their agricultural land, the people who have used regenerative farming principles for millennia are reimplementing the practice in their communities. This allows them to improve soil health and reconnect with the land.

The Life Do Grow Farm in Philadelphia, run by the nonprofit Urban Creators, is a two-acre plot that yields food needed to feed the community who might not be able to make ends meet. Since June, the farm has distributed 65,000 pounds of produce, along with free children’s meals. But the farm is also a community gathering space for artists and entrepreneurs. While the land’s lease runs out in 2022, the nonprofit hopes to own it and highlight it as a “reimagination of city land, a radical collaboration in the service of empowering Black and brown communities in North Central Philly,” said the farm manager.

As the population of urban areas in Uganda grows, many farmers are finding that they are running out of space to cultivate successful business in agriculture. One solution that has surfaced has been to build up instead of out.