Agricultural Transition Newsletter

EL NIŃO Edition - January 2016

Dear Agricultural Transition Subscribers,

We are wishing you a great start of the year! For some of our friends working in farms and fisheries, it has been a very challenging new year as the El Niño phenomenon is tremendously affecting their livelihoods. The El Niño phenomenon is a catastrophic occurrence in which a huge body of warm water builds up in the Tropical Pacific region. It causes weather disturbances that lead to extreme droughts in the Asia Pacific region and flooding in the Southern American side of the Pacific.

One of the missions of the Agricultural Transition website is to build a rich collection of knowledge and best practices that would help farmers, fishers and other agricultural workers in determining the best ways to cope up with disturbing weather conditions such as the El Niño phenomenon.

We have picked a series of initiatives and case studies being exercised around the world that we have thought, would embody the purpose of the Agricultural Transition website. We hope that you could take time to read some if not most of it and share this issue if you would find it useful to others.

If this email was forwarded to you, please take time to subscribe to our Updates by signing up on our website: http://ag-transition.org

Thank you very much and more power!

Sincerely,

The Agricultural Transition Team

A watershed evolving

Intense watershed management and water harvesting in the state of Tigray, northern Ethiopia, have transformed the area beyond recognition and increased food security and enhanced resilience to floods and droughts. A new way of thinking about watershed management and the efforts of local farmers have contributed to the success of a number of initiatives.

Agroecology and Water Harvesting in Zimbabwe

Since the late 1960s, Zephaniah Phiri Maseko has pioneered a unique, innovative vision for community and agricultural development through judicious water management; his system has been widely adopted across the country, increasing agricultural productivity and resilience in this semi-arid region.

Farming for healthy urban tap water

New York City's water is kept safe and clean by an innovative cooperative agreement with farmers that benefits both the city and rural communities. The programme demonstrates that water utilities can go beyond applying traditional engineering solutions and pioneer innovative governance, management and financial arrangements with upstream farming communities.

A technology to drastically save irrigation water

At the Centre for Environment Concerns, an NGO based in Hyderabad, India, the challenge was clear: develop an inclusive irrigation technology suitable for low rainfall areas. Alongside farmers and female farm labourers, they developed a system that provides assured moisture directly to the plant root zone. Initial trials show two unique benefits: it requires about one fifth of the water …

The páramo, where water is born

San Isidro is an indigenous community in Ecuador’s central Andes that collectively built and manages an irrigation pipeline. The pipeline has brought life back to family farming and created more space for the community to protect the páramo, a source of water and life for farming communities and urban residents alike. This story proves the strength of longstanding models of …

The Agricultural Transition websites was created by a common effort by many organizations. We want to show the wide range of sustainable agricultural practices, and that peasants and other small scale food producers and providers can nourish a growing population, preserve the environment and contribute substantially to stop the climate change. We also want to contribute to develop policies and actions for a viable food future. The list of some useful reports on policies and links to other webpages are parts of that effort.

To develop this webpage and make it a useful tool for the transition of agriculture, we need contributions from individuals, organizations and institutions. Please send articles, reports, links etc you would like to see on this webpage: [email protected]. The administration of this webpage is managed by the More and Better Network on behalf of all organizations which are involved.

We are very grateful for the financial support which made it possible to create this webpage. Many thanks to The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), The Development Fund (Norway) and Heidehof Stiftung (Germany).