Feeding the half of world's people who are living on less than $6 a day with Tim Prewitt - The Hunger Project

For the billions of people living on less than $5 a day the only available option with rising food prices is to buy less food. It’s easy to blame this current crisis on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, when you look at things more deeply there are bigger issues at play. The coupling of fuel price and food prices is crippling food systems for many of the world’s poorest people. On top of this are growing impact of climate change and the flow on market effects of countries locking up food and energy reserves for their own perceived national interest. 

The Hunger Project works across Africa, South Asia, and Latin America to help millions of people end their own hunger and poverty. By far the best tool available is increasing local food production. This is especially the case if these systems are growing highly nutritious indigenous crops and include small scale livestock production.

I recently caught up with Tim Prewitt, The Hunger Project’s CEO to discuss how the current spikes in food and energy prices are impacting world’s most vulnerable. He described a small regenerative farm and agribusiness in Uganda run by Fareeda, where she grows and processes pumpkins and a few other crops.

There were no neat rows with trees and other crops dispersed across the farm. The trees included cocoa, mango, and papaya. The crops included, corn, soy, okra, melon, pumpkin, and other vegetables all growing together. You could see how the plants were working together. All the waste from the farm and business were composted and returned to the soil. The farm was feeding her family and several others around her by using these techniques. She’s really proud of her work.

Fareeda’s farms show how food can be produced locally and regeneratively. It also highlights the challenges of scaling regenerative agriculture, especially given the agricultural subsidy policies that remain highly focused on the industrial production of wheat, corn, rice and sugar. You can listen to our conversation here.

Send us a text