Today I am e-attending the Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP) meeting in Aarhus, Denmark as one of a few voices from the global “South”. The GFSP is a unique public-private initiative dedicated to improving the safety of food in middle-income and developing countries initiated by the World Bank. Food safety is a complex problem. In today’s world, food’s journey from meadow to meal or hook to cook can include multiple steps, many vehicles, and several transformations. As demand for food increases, food is increasingly making longer and more complicated journeys with more companies participating in its production and delivery. As a result, the opportunities for the introduction and spread of contamination increase. Tackling this takes an organised, coordinated approach—across borders, governments, and industry—to ensure the safety of the world’s food. The GFSP brings together fishers and farmers, business and industry, governments, regulatory bodies, international development organisations, and civil society to … Read More
World Without Fences
Will Allen CEO of Growing Power, Milwaukee, “I have worked with community gardening projects that don’t do a good enough job of involving the garden’s neighbours.”We’ve got to put up a fence to protect our garden,” people will say. I tell them no, you don’t. You have to do the harder work of engaging the community. You’ve got to make sure the neighbours know that the garden is their own, not yours. Kids in the neighborhood threw rocks at my greenhouses when I first opening in 1993, but they stopped several months after my arrival. I had not retaliated or chased them away. Instead, I invited the young people to come and see what we were doing. I gave them summer jobs. Neighbours started respecting the fact that I was bringing food into the community. They started being eyes and ears for me. The community felt ownership in our shared success. … Read More