Worlld Neighbors News
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) this month released “Save and Grow,” describing how any why small hold farmers can use innovative sustainable techniques in tune with the local environment to increase output while lowering input costs, especially that of herbicides and pesticides.
The FAO cites a number of successful practices, including China’s rice-and-fish system, wherein farmers stock flooded paddy fields with fish. These can eventually be sold for income or eaten for better nutrition but while being raised also eat insects, fungi and weeds that would otherwise damage the crop, reducing the need to spend on pesticides.
A one-hectare paddy field can yield up to 750 kilograms of fish while still supporting rice yields and leading to fourfold gains in rural household income. Extra benefits include sharp drops in mosquito populations, thus reducing a serious disease vector.
World Neighbors, a development NGO based in Oklahoma City, has been implementing these types of sustainable, farmer-centered programs for 65 years.
For example, in Kisumu, Kenya, World Neighbors is helping farmers with projects that take the Chinese rice-and-fish system to a new level. Here’s how it works:
Farmers dig large plastic-lined ponds to retain precious rainwater. Into the ponds are put tilapia and other fish. Some of the ponds hold 1,000 fish.
The water is pumped from the ponds using solar powered pumps. The pumped water is replenished from tanks that store additional captured rainwater. The pumped water, which contains nutrients from fish waste, is used in drip irrigation systems to water multiple crops, including kale. The inedible parts of the vegetables, as well as some kitchen waste, are in turn used as fish feed.
It is a low-cost, sustainable and scalable system that provides more than enough vegetables and fish for a village. The increased surplus of food and vegetables is sold in local markets. Profits are used in a collective savings and credit program that provides working capital for additional fishponds, pumps, rainwater storage tanks, etc.
World Neighbors implements similar projects in Bolivia, Peru, Indonesia and other countries. To learn more, please contact me at 202-554-5796.