Hunger War needs Stewardship

A lot of focus has been on facilitating access by small holder farmers to technologies that have over the years made their large scale counterparts successful producers. "Imagine what will happen to the soils, when small holder farmers get swamped by all sorts of containers and chemicals. The war against famine will not have achieved its goal," observed Prof. Vasey Mwaja coordinator of www.cleanfarms.net.

At the moment the push is on getting more fertilizer, improved seeds and chemical farm inputs to small holder farmers in developing countries. Each of these items carries with it plastics, metal fibers and other materials that are not necessarily biodegradable. Where farmers fail to use farm chemicals, say due to drought, they are faced with another challenge of disposal. The quest to upgrade activities of subsistence farmers might turn hazardous to both crop life and human life. 

To fight famine, stewardship initiatives ought to be part of the game plan. The same way we learn traffic rules to ensure that our quest to drive automobiles does not turn hazardous to other motorists and ourselves.

James Shikwati

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