This is what happens when you give small farmers the confidence their food will sell-Sidama Elto Farmers’ Cooperative Union in Awassa
This is what happens when you give small farmers the confidence their food will sell May 22nd, 2013 10:49 AM UTC By Roger Thurow We can make food aid more sustainable not by giving away Western food, but by working with local farmers and creating a market for their crops in the region. ONE Agriculture Fellow Roger Thurow reports. Ten years after the Ethiopian famine of 2003, when international food aid rushed in to feed 14 million people, another World Food Program (WFP) tent has been erected on an open field. But this isn’t a scene of food distribution. It is a scene of food purchase. Leonida and her surplus food, stored in this hut. If farmers have the confidence their food will get sold, they will grow more. Photo: Roger Thurow The action happens on the grounds of the Sidama Elto Farmers’ Cooperative Union in Awassa, Ethiopia. Sidama Elto is one of 16 cooperative unions in Ethiopia that have signed forward contracts with the World Food Programme for the purch