An Overlooked Resource: Prosopis in Africa

Prosopis juliflora

How can Prosopis, a genus of trees numbering 44 species, help tackle food insecurity? On 24th May 2012 the Centre for Agroecology and Food Security of Coventry University held a meeting to discuss this question with an audience of researchers, aid agencies and NGOs.

Generally thought of as invasive in Africa and other parts of the world, its importance in South America dates back to pre-Hispanic times where it has been used as fuel, fodder and food. Indeed Prosopis in Spanish is algarrobo, originating from the word yrbol, which literally means tree.

In 1998, Garden Organic (formerly the Henry Doubleday Research Association) began leading an international team funded by DFID to investigate Prosopis. Prosopis trees are fast growing, nitrogen-fixing and salt and drought tolerant, making them ideal for semi arid and arid tropical regions. But this thorny invader can spread rapidly in drylands forming dense impenetrable thickets.

Despite its variety of uses and nutritional value (the pods are high in sugars, carbohydrates and protein) this multi-purpose tree is not utilised in many of the areas it inhabits, most notably in Africa. This is down to two reasons. Firstly, there exists so called negative press around its usage from the thorns causing limbs to become infected and require amputating to livestock who have been fed solely on Prosopis having all their teeth fall out, both of which are based on some truth. Secondly, it is very difficult to control and eradicate once established and it can have devastating effects reducing grazing lands, shading out native plant species and overrunning farmland. As such ecologists are working towards plans and projects to manage infestations, for example Farm Africa’s Afar Prosopis Management Project.

The Centre advocates a win-win route to reducing outbreaks of Prosopis while tackling food insecurity:  control by utilisation. In some cases the private sector is involved. For example, RIOCON (Rio Farms Collected Accounts LTDA) are successfully marketing Prosopis (also known as Mesquite) as fodder for livestock in Brazil, with revenues of some £6 billion a year. But for Prosopis to be commercially and locally produced as a fuel and food source in Africa, consumer preferences and behaviour will have to change.

The plant may have made the journey across the Atlantic some 150 years ago but the indigenous knowledge that went with it did not. In the case of potatoes, it took a century until they were cultivated and another century until they became a food for the masses. Will we have to wait a century before the Prosopis becomes widely accepted as a food source?

The Centre have the data that shows the positive impact Prosopis can have as a food source in Kenya and Djibouti and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved Prosopis for human consumption, but what are the routes to mainstreaming this potentially valuable crop? It may not be a magic bullet in the fight to end hunger but perhaps by working with farmers, sharing information and some joint positive marketing strategies, it could become a staple and stable food source in Africa.

Katy Wilson, Ag4Impact

G8 2012: Progress on Food Security and Nutrition?

The G8 pledged to lift 50 million people out of poverty over the next decade at their annual summit at Camp David on 18-19 May. The Camp David Declaration contains four paragraphs on food security and nutrition, the centre-piece of which is the announcement of a New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition ‘to accelerate the flow of private capital to African agriculture, take to scale new technologies and other innovations that can increase sustainable agricultural productivity, and reduce the risk borne by vulnerable economies and communities.’

Campaigning for UK Action

Ag4Impact joined Save the Children, ONE and Concern to deliver a petition to David Cameron the day before he flies to the G8 summit in Camp David.  The petition has captured over 300,000 signatures urging David Cameron to take urgent action to tackle hunger and malnutrition.

310,626 people have taken action calling on world leaders to address hunger and malnutrition at the G8 summit this week.  They include people from every constituency in the UK. Fifty campaigners marched through central London to deliver the petition in wheelbarrows also filled with nutritious food to No. 10 Downing Street.

On Friday, 18 May, leaders are to hold talks to agree a new agenda for food security.

The Imperial Festival 2012

On 11th and 12th May Imperial College will be opening its doors to the public for the very first Imperial College Festival.  Find out more in the video below.

Expert Commentary – Hunger at Camp David

Gordon Conway writes for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Global Food for Thought blog and for the Huffington Post.  

The one billion poor and hungry in the world will not be at the Camp David G8 summit later this month. But decisions made there could make their lives a great deal better. Now is the time to act, building on the significant achievements made since the agreement of the G8 L’Aquila Food Security Initiative in 2009.

Despite the multiple challenges at large, I am optimistic about African agriculture. There has certainly never been a better basis to build on. While the economies of the G8 nations themselves are in the doldrums, many African countries are experiencing significant growth. Over the past decade six of the world’s ten fastest growing economies were African. Ghana, for example, has been growing very fast – predicted to be over 8% this year – and not only because of minerals and oil: their agricultural growth has been averaging over 5% for at least the past ten years.

Land sharing and land sparing: tools for creating resilient smallholders?

Agricultural growth has historically come at the expense of land and the natural environment. This has led to increasing pressures on biodiversity, a diversity on which agriculture’s sustainability depends. Indeed agriculture increasingly relies on only a handful of staple crops and farming is the single biggest risk to bird species listed as threatened.

Concerns over the fate of agriculture in a deteriorating natural environment and the future of the world’s biodiversity have led to the use of two distinct practices: land sharing and land sparing. But is one better at achieving food security AND biodiversity protection than the other?  And can either of them really be useful to the 400 to 500 million smallholder farmers in the world?

Who is your international development champion?

Who is your preferred champion of international development issues?

The answer, as you might expect, depends on who you are, and where you live.

In a recent report for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation published in March 2012, Intermedia  set out to answer that question, and identify other top media sources of information for ‘interested citizens’, ‘influentials’, and ‘government decision-makers’ in China, France, Germany and the United States.

The results were revealing. Here I set out some of the research conclusions from interviews that took place with UK respondents between May and September 2011.