Diversifying sustainable farming systems: behaviour change is key.

Save the Children US is part of the International Save the Children Alliance that works in over 100 countries worldwide. The goal of its Food Security Program is to reduce the number of children who suffer from hunger and malnutrition. It has 13 long-term programmes in: Sub-Saharan Africa--Angola, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Uganda; Latin America and the Caribbean--Bolivia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua; and Asia--Bangladesh, Indonesia and Tajikistan. Generally, these are five-year programmes that address the health and nutrition of children and their families, including improving household access to a wider range and greater quantities of nutritious foods, by intensifying and diversifying the management of food production systems.

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Behaviour-focused programming is at the centre of the Save the Children's strategy to reduce the number of children suffering from hunger and malnutrition. It tries to understand why some families in the developing world survive the hunger season without malnutrition or illness, and how they are able to produce more than their neighbours who have similar socio-economic environments. These families work the same size plots as their neighbours, cultivate the same marginal lands and endure the same rainfall, yet they are better able to withstand moderate shocks and stress in their farming systems. Social scientists call them "positive deviants", and Save the Children develops behaviour-change messages that help these farm families adapt new crops and crop varieties to diversify their farming systems and reduce their risks and vulnerability to food insecurity.

In the initial phase of its programme activities. Save the Children's agricultural team characterizes the farming systems in the communities where we work. This includes conducting an inventory of the local biodiversity that households depend upon for their food production systems: local crops commonly grown, agro-ecological and socio-economic characteristics of different varieties of each crop; species of fruit trees and vegetable crops grown; and types of root and tuber crops common in their farming systems. Knowledge of these characteristics provides the means to restore food production systems affected by disasters and to identify new crop varieties that may be more productive, less susceptible to disease and pests, and/or drought resistant.

The Save the Children's approach to reducing risks of and vulnerabilities to food insecurity is to promote the diversification of household food production systems, which includes promoting new food crop mixes of cereal and grain legumes, root and tubers, home garden systems with a wide range of nutritious vegetable species, and planting multi-purpose fruit and firewood tree species. In promoting diversification, we focus on market opportunities for the family to generate household income and meet the nutritional needs of their children. Programmes promote new varieties that have better nutritional potential, such as bio-fortified bean varieties that are higher in iron and zinc, sweet potatoes rich in vitamin A, and varieties of maize with a higher quality of protein than traditional varieties.

Major efforts are made to promote more food production in and around the homestead. Biodiversity in species and varieties is among the most striking features of home gardens. Scientists are realizing that a vegetable-rich diet can bolster the immune system and help minimize the symptoms of HIV/AIDS. Vegetables are not a magic bullet and cannot cure people who are dying, but they can help those infected enjoy longer, more productive lives.

In most of the countries where Save the Children has food security programmes, households have both food and animal production systems. We promote integration of animal resources with food-crop production system to intensify the management of these resources. Production of more food in and around the homestead is increased by sweeping the refuse of organic matter into trench pits and planting home gardens, penning animals to collect manure to make compost for these gardens, and making maximum use of water that comes into the homestead. Intensive management of these home gardens can provide a year-round source of nutritious food for the children and their families, but this requires a significant behaviour change in the management of their farming systems.

In all aspects of our agricultural programming, the conservation of plant genetic resources and the sustainable management of local biodiversity are core standards towards reducing food insecurity. Biodiversity in the community is the foundation of their well-being, and Save the Children through its programmes makes every effort to ensure that children and their families have sustainable access to enough high-quality food to lead active and healthy lives.

RELATED ARTICLE: Model Farmer and Model Human Being

Michel has earned the respect of his neighbours and community because of his honesty, hard work and relative success, despite his modest means. He has participated in Save the Children's food security programme for 18 months and is now serving as a model farmer, promoting behaviour change to diversify farming systems. He was elected to lead a group of fifty farmers who hope to achieve a long-term improvement in their ability to feed themselves and care for their families through their efforts to improve production and income.

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At 38, Michel looks much older. He lives with his wife and four children who range in age from 8 months to 18 years. A small, self-effacing man, he manages to feed his family on his two acres of corn, sorghum, millet and peas. He has improved his orange tree and eggplant by grafting sweeter and more productive varieties. Michel sells some of his products in town, while his wife works hard as a small trader, buying goods in town and walking to distant communities to sell them.

Michel is managing a small nursery started by the farmers group with seedlings and planting materials provided by Save the Children. The farmers were able to buy papaya, sedre (for firewood production) and other fruit-tree seedlings at a reduced rate, and the funds collected are used to finance the nursery or other additional projects chosen by the farmers with the help of Save the Children's agricultural agents. The farmers have received regularly technical assistance from these agents, who have promoted greater crop diversity for family consumption and sale, and have worked with sub-groups interested in expanding production of a particular crop or practice. The land on the lower plateau is good, although many farmers in Michel's group must rent land, adding to the cost and making high productivity critical. Interested agricultural programme participants and representatives from local organizations have received training in small-scale, income-generating activities related to food processing, such as production of jams and jellies from local fruits.

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Participating families, especially those with pregnant mothers and children under two, are also eligible for the health/nutrition component of the programme. Michel's seven-month-old son is a participant in growth monitoring sessions and his family is happy to know that he is healthy. Malnourished children and their mothers join in behaviour-change sessions for several weeks and receive larger food rations until they recuperate.

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Michel is also proud of his older daughters who are completing high school. They are tall and radiate good health, the result of a diet that is both sufficient and nutritious. Because he wants to help his neighbours and because of his belief in education, he has given a half acre of his land for Save the Children to build a school that will be run by the community itself. It will open soon and many more parents will be able to enrol their children.

Unbeknown to Michel, links between the mother's education and childhood nutritional status have been proven, and he has made a contribution to the long-term food security of his community. With the help of people like him, Save the Children is making a difference in the lives of women and children in the community and the greater region of Maissade. Its community-based and integrated approach to behaviour-centred programming in Haiti addresses both immediate needs and long-term solutions to hunger and malnutrition. It is designed to work with 40,000 beneficiaries and their families through direct implementation and local partners across the central plateau--just one of the Save the Children's 13 integrated food security programmes worldwide.

--William Fiebig

RELATED ARTICLE: Right to Food Guidelines

The Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on 23 November 2004 adopted voluntary guidelines that would "support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security". The adoption of the Right to Food Guidelines came two months to the day after the FAO Committee on World Food Security endorsed them, following some twenty months of often difficult but constructive negotiations. They were conceived "to provide practical guidance" to help countries implement their obligations relating to the right to adequate food, according to FAO. This should improve the chances of reaching the goal set by the 1996 World Food Summit and the UN Millennium Assembly to cut by half the number of hungry people in the world by 2015. Unless these Guidelines are implemented and people are moved off the list of hungry at a much greater rate than is currently the case, it is very unlikely that this goal will be met.

The Guidelines take into account important human rights principles, including non-discrimination, equality, participation, inclusion, accountability and the rule of law, as well as the principle that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interrelated and interdependent. Various intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations contributed significantly to the preparation of the Guidelines.

FAO Assistant Director-General Hartwig de Haen said: "The Guidelines are a human rights-based tool addressed to all States to help implement good practices in food security policies. They cover the full range of actions that need to be taken at the national level to construct an enabling environment for people to feed themselves in dignity and to establish appropriate safety nets for those who cannot. This landmark event signifies universal acceptance of what the right to food really means."

According to FAO Legal Counsel Giuliano Pucci: "Now we face the challenge of putting these Guidelines into everyday practice in a way that will bring an end to the injustice of hunger. The Guidelines provide us with a new instrument to better define the obligation of the State and to address the needs of the hungry and malnourished, and we should use them to empower the poor and hungry to claim their rights."

At the June 2002 World Food Summit: Five Years Later, heads of State and Government reaffirmed "the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food". They invited the FAO Council to establish an intergovernmental working group to develop a set of voluntary guidelines to support Member States' efforts to achieve the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security.

William Fiebig is technical advisor at the Food Security Unit of the Save the Children Federation, Inc. and a farming systems agronomist with thirty years experience. He was an agricultural officer with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations from 1998 to 2002.

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