Soils, Food and Healthy Communities

Out of a desire to protect our region from this virus, all of SFHC’s field work activities have been closed as of April 7. Although the Malawi government has not yet confirmed any cases of COVID-19 in the country, SFHC recognizes the severity of this situation. Malawi is one of the poorest countries on the continent, with current data estimating a total of seventeen ventilators for a population of nineteen million people. The public health system is inadequately prepared for the magnitude of the crisis to come. SFHC staff and farmer volunteers are key figures in their communities, and have a crucial role to play as coordinators of information for isolated rural regions. Our staff have been preparing by raising awareness around COVID-19, spreading medical advice on how farming families can protect themselves using hand washing, social distancing and and protective measures. For the month of March we used our field survey activities as a tool for spreading news into the most distant, isolated villages.

After putting all nonessential in-person work on hiatus from April 7, we will continue to maintain virtual contact with farmer volunteers and staff to assess the food security status of our communities. We are relieved to have witnessed that the rains have been very good this year, making immediate food shortages unlikely.

However, we are very concerned about the long-term food security and nutrition of Malawian farmers in the aftermath of COVID-19. Public health infrastructure in the country is dangerously limited, and long-distance commutes, lack of connectivity and education make our communities especially vulnerable to this crisis. A weakened economy exacerbates current poverty and inequality. If you have the resources, please consider donating to organizations working to support East African health systems in fighting the Coronavirus, such as the internationally recognized Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

In addition to immediate medical support, the need for building long-term food security, nutrition, gender equality, sustainable lands and resilient communities has never been greater. We do not know the timeline of this virus. We hope to be able to continue our work as soon as social interactions are safe, but in the mean time we are working on innovative ways to continue supporting farmers for the long haul. Please consider supporting our work.

Stay well, friends!
SFHC

Mr. Laifolo Dakishoni, Deputy Director and Finance and Administrative Manager of SFHC, represented our team at the Conference on Agroecology for Climate Resilience in November. The conference, hosted by the African Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), brought together “officials, leading experts and practitioners drawn from the African Union, regional economic commissions, NGOs, CSOs, small scale food producers, small businesses, academia, and UN bodies including FAO”. This diverse range of attendees traveled to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, in order to inform policy and reinforce connections between related initiatives dedicated to championing food sovereignty in Africa.

Our Deputy Director Laifolo Dakishoni was invited as a speaker. He presented on our work in relation to climate change and resilience, and the importance of an African food policy being informed by the knowledge of small farmers. Dak, we’re proud to have you representing us, and delighted to be connecting with excellent allies at AFSA!

Three graduate students from the University of Würzburg, each focusing on a different aspect of ecology, are our newest collaborators in the FARMS4Biodiversity project’s first working package, Scenarios for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
PhD student Georg Kuestern will examine natural enemies of pests (including birds, parastioids and ground predators) in order to quantify their importance in specific landscapes and intercropping systems for agroecological farming.
PhD student Cassandra Vogel is in her second year of research, focused on the presence of bees on agroecological farms, among other topics.
MSc student Vera Mayer will investigate the relationship between Malawian butterflies and the landscape, especially in the gradient between project areas and adjacent land.

These students are living in Northern Malawi from October to June, collecting data for their research, which will collectively explore the effects of agroecological farming practices on local biodiversity and vice versa. They spent late October getting an orientation to the sites, discussing experimental design with our team members and learning about manure from farmers. This aspect of the FARMS4Biodiversity project is supervised by the University of Würtsburg’s Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter and Cornell’s Katja Poveda. We look forward to working with them and reading their findings!

The nonprofit Beacons of Hope, in collaboration with The Global Alliance for the Future of Food and Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development, has launched a new project entitled “Transforming Food Systems”. The project seeks out and highlights creative, resourceful food systems initiatives across the globe currently engaging in transformative work to address food insecurity, inequality and climate change. At SFHC, we recognize that the first step to change is envisioning it. As we continue to work toward a future built on a just food system, we learn and draw hope from our resilient colleagues across the planet pioneering alternatives to our current reality. We’re inspired by a diverse range of allies doing great work around the world, and honoured to be part of this initiative!

See Beacons of Hope’s feature on us; check out their interactive toolkit for amplifying the potential of food systems transformation; and read more about their related projects map!

Stephanie Enloe sits down to interview Dr. Jahi Chappel, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Agroecology, Water, and Resilience at the University of Coventry, and Professor Rachel Bezner Kerr, a long-standing SFHC research collaborator. The interview includes a discussion of Professor Bezner Kerr’s work with SFHC in Malawi, and Dr. Chappell’s recent book, “Beginning to End Hunger.”

Listen to the podcast here!

(Check out the original blog post by Christian Elliot and explore more content from Cornell University CALS’s department of Development Sociology.)

Earlier this month, SFHC Collaborator Rachel Bezner Kerr attended the exciting launch of new BiodivERsA projects in Helsinki–including their support for SFHC’s own FARMS4Biodiversity.

BiodivERsA is a network of funding organizations united to support research on the conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. The network inludes 35 agencies and ministries from 23 European countries. Since 2005, BiodivERsA has funded about 70 different pan-European research projects.

The FARMS4Biodiversity team has already begun its innovative, ambitious work to collect and analyze data on species diversity and ecosystem services, while moving forward with plans to create a multi-actor platform that will examine scenarios of land-use change generated by the project.

Katherine Torday Gulden at NIBIO has written this informative article about the project’s launch; follow the link to learn more about the project’s aims and structure.

David Banda of SFHC and Stephanie Enloe of Cornell University recently presented their work on the FARM for Biodiversity project at the Agroecology for the 21st Century Conference in Cape Town, South Africa. You can see their presentation here.

Watch the teaser below, produced by film students at the University of Cape Town, to receive a primer on agroecology prepared especially for this exciting event.

We’ve added a new page to our site as we launch an ambitious new project, FARMS4Biodiversity. FARMS brings together a team of researchers, farmers, scientists, policy-makers, and many others from around the world. We are so excited to have the opportunity to share our progress with you.

During the week of January 14th, multiple international and Malawian members of the FARMS team met in Malawi to begin work on the new project. Project members worked out a plan for ecological data sampling, in which the team will assess beneficial insects (i.e. bees, parasitoid wasps, and beetle predators) using bowl traps and pitfall traps. The project coordinator and farmer promoters were trained in using these techniques.

The team will also sample pest damage through visual inspection of maize and bean plants. Team members decided upon the best protocol for collecting these data.

Finally, one farmer promotor will conduct bird surveys on participating farms with both visual and acoustic detections. Over the course of two weeks in the latter half of January, the team identified approximately 60 fields in 24 villages where they will perform these collections and surveys.

We look forward to sharing new developments from FARMS as they unfold!