Changing What is on Your Plate

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How to feed the world ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.

This interesting video was made for the «Bon appétit» exhibition in Paris science museum (Cité des sciences et de l’industrie). It was aimed mainly at kids aged 9 to 14, but I must say that this 52-year-old also learnt a fair amount.

As many of you know, the NGO that I work with in Kimilili, Kenya is trying to set up a gardening vocational training program. The program goals are the following,

"Our CBSM Gardening Vocational Training Program teaches women co-ops and youths from our Youth Vision program about sustainable agriculture and good business practices. The participants formed their co-ops under supervision of community elders, and work in collaboration to implement good farming practices and create small-scale garden businesses.

We are presently cultivating two acres of leased land; growing a variety of vegetables and grains using drip irrigation systems, poly culture techniques, and other practices in hope that we can increase the yields of these gardens. We would like to extend the scope of our present program and establish a permanent self-sustaining vocational training program in the next two and a half years. To this end we need to establish better collaboration with sources of information and training and to find proper funding. The practices taught and used in our program focus on counteracting the devastation the persisting drought has and is creating in our community."

That is the sort description. The long one would take a long time to point out all of the challenges. Yet, I must say that the people involved in the project, both locally and internationally, are such a motivated and resourceful group.  I thought I might mention a few of the challenges in the next while so that you could send me your ideas and feedback on how to manage them. You can either leave a comment here or write to me (virtualredtent at yahoo dot com). Please feel free to pose any questions or make any comments you wish.