Peanut Butter and Progress

by: borderjumpers

Mon May 03, 2010 at 11:35:31 AM EDT

Originally featured in the North Carolina News Observer.

It's not every day you meet someone from Raleigh while traveling in Lusaka, Zambia. Dale Lewis might not have intended to spend decades in the landlocked African country of 12 million, but his passion for protecting wildlife and for conservation led him there - and his entrepreneurial spirit and desire to lift farmers from poverty while protecting the environment compelled him to stay.

How does Lewis, who attended Broughton High School and whose parents were longtime Raleigh residents, help alleviate hunger and poverty in Zambia's most rural areas?

By making peanut butter, and lots of it!

One of the first things you notice about grocery stores in Zambia is the plethora of processed foods from around the world, from crackers made in Argentina and soy milk from China to popular U.S. breakfast cereals. Complementing these foreign foods, however, are a variety of locally made and processed products, including indigenous varieties of organic rice, all-natural peanut butter and honey from the It's Wild brand.

It's Wild was started by the Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), which Lewis founded over 30 years ago to conserve and protect local wildlife.

COMACO helps farmers improve their agricultural practices in ways that can protect the environment while also creating a reliable market for farm products. It organizes farmers into producer groups, encouraging them to diversify their skills by raising livestock and bees, growing organic rice, using improved irrigation and fisheries management and other practices so that they don't have to resort to poaching elephants or other wildlife.

By targeting hard-to-reach farmers who live near protected areas, "we're trying to turn things around," Lewis says. For decades, many farmers in eastern Zambia practiced slash-and-burn agriculture and were involved in widespread elephant poaching. It was their only option. Degraded soils and drought left many farmers in the region desperate.

By training more than 650 "lead" farmers to train other farmers, COMACO hopes not only to protect the environment and local wildlife, but also to help farmers increase their incomes by connecting them to the private market. The organization supports creation of regional processing centers and trading depots to make it easier for farmers to process their crops and transport them to market. It also offers a higher price to farmers who grow rice and other products organically and for those who use the conservation farming techniques they've learned from trainers and lead farmers.

Lewis says that when farmers comply with COMACO, they see benefits, including improvements in food security and health.

The resulting products are then sold under the It's Wild brand in major supermarket chains across Zambia, such as ShopRite, Checkers and Spar. Next year, COMACO plans to export its products to Botswana. The organization is trying to do as much of the product distribution as possible so that the money stays with the farmers and not middlemen.

COMACO has also gotten technical support from Minneapolis-based multinational food giant General Mills. The company paid for a COMACO food technician to visit its headquarters in early 2009 to learn how different food processing techniques can increase the nutritional and economic value of the foods the organization is selling. Lewis hopes that eventually COMACO will be self-sufficient, and profitable, without the current dependence on donor funding. But that's not easy for an organization that works with thousands of farmers and has high administrative, transport and salary costs.

He says that he is 70 percent there and is determined to show that his model is not only sustainable, but also profitable.

Danielle Nierenberg is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and co-project director of "State of World 2011: Nourishing the Planet." Bernard Pollack is a travel writer from the District of Columbia, currently based in Africa.

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OTW: Bienvenidos a Miami Part 2

by: Sally Panic

Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 14:05:02 PM EST

Last week, I left you hanging with OTW: Bienvenidos a Miami Part 1. In that Essay, I told you a little bit about my growing up in Miami, Florida, alongside the initial wave of Cuban refugees in the early 1960's. I also promised you I was going somewhere with this. Yes, I do have a Point. :P I will make good on that promise near the end below. And finally, I left you with a cliffhanger with my mention of my Cuban friend, Maria {not her real name}. Well, guess what? I have a surprise for you!

Let's pick up with a little snapshot phone convo between me and Maria, shortly after college.

She picks up on the third ring and I immediately lay into her. "Where the hell are you? It's one o'clock already! Ive been ready for an hour! We're gonna be late!!"

Maria is ever so casual. "Calmate, we have plenty of time. I'll be there to pick you up around 2, like I told you. Man! Calm down."

"But... the invitation says the wedding starts at 2, and it's a 45 minute drive, at least, up to Hollywood. We are sooooo late. This is so bad."  I'm whining and pleading now.

Maria assures me and tries to explain. "Bueno, she's Cuban, remember? Are you kidding me? We would look so stupid if we actually had the nerve to arrive at 2PM. They'd lookit us like we're crazy."

"No, no, no, but Maria... he is Jewish! This is just so not done. You don't get it."

"No, you don't get it, the bride's family is Jewban. The groom doesn't count when it comes to a wedding anyway, ferchrissake. Hang up the phone and go fix your lipstick or something. Ill be there in a bit. Jewbans are on Cuban time, reglas cubanas. lolol

Okay, as culture clashes go,  this one is certainly tame and a little funny, but it did happen, and yes, we were terribly late by the wall clock, with me fretting all the way of course, but it all turned out just fine. Maria was right. lol We arrived just as the ceremony started, at about 4PM, which was just right by the culture clock.

Off the Wall 010710

by: Sally Panic

Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 12:37:28 PM EST

OFF THE WALL: Im willing to make a commitment to a weekly Essay every Thursday, however I can't promise I'll stay "on topic", so it'll be open-ended. I have a definite tendency to wander off and go on tangents (in case you haven't noticed!). Sometimes, my thinking, and subsequent remarks, leapfrog and may seem like they are just Off The Wall. I'll try to leave a trail in here. If I can stay on track for a while, my hope is to broaden, enlighten, and embrace my own, and yours, world view through review of world cultures and crises. (and maybe Ill learn to text wrap too. lol)

So. Here we go. heh.

My spark this week was from a great phone conversation with Diane G and we somehow got onto a topic of diversity, multi-cultural, etc. I forget how we even got started on that. But it made me realize that my life experiences have been anything but homogenious or culturally boring.

This subject, world cultures, is something that you could write about every week for a year and still not cover it. It's .... complicated.  Even just with a normal-ish approach. However, you will not get a normal-ish approach to it from me!

For some inexplicable reason, I've always had a fascination with world cultures and variations of the human theme. It hits me from several angles. It's fascinating, really. Then it morphs and extends into areas of human rights & justice, then global stuff, then ya know enlightenment and One Love and all that! (lol Pinky & the Brain: "And Tomorrow, Conquer the Worrrrrld!") So, I'll just see how this takes shape.

Aside from my B.A. in Cultural Anthropology, I mostly tap in to my personal experiences when I get into this arena. The degree thing, well, I'm not much of an academic and my poor Advisor had to constantly nudge me to take more on Theory. Poor guy.

I grew up in the 60's & 70's in neo-Miami, alongside a sizeable population* of Cuban refugees. (*approx 400,000 from 1960-1974) Strange city to grow up in. In some ways, a suburb of New York, but truly quite unique. Tourist town.  From there, a whole life's worth of experiences. limited geographically but broad in other ways. Most notably, a year or so working in a refugee services agency (RSA) in 1992, grant-funded, unbelieveably challenging and an incredibly enriching time for me. Humbling. Profoundly humbling.

Most definitely not the first, but certainly the most profound "cross-cultural" experience was my interactions and friendships with a particular few Cambodian-Americans back in '92. They stole won my heart. In my recent google-hunt, I came across this post which makes a statement that I've felt ... in my bones ...  for some years, but was never able to articulate as well as this woman does here. She cuts to the quick. This goes to the core of my activism.