Zambian grocery stores are filled with processed foods from around the world, from crackers made in Argentina and soy milk from China to popular U.S. breakfast cereals. In addition to these foreign foods, however, are also 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) over 30 years ago to preserve and protect wildlife. But the organization soon learned that in order to protect wildlife, it would need to address the lack of income sources for local communities that were sometimes forced to resort to poaching elephants or other wildlife in order to earn enough to feed their families.
To do this, COMACO 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. The organization supports the creation of regional processing centers and trading depots to make it easier for farmers to process and transport their crops. Their products are then sold under the It's Wild brand in supermarket chains in Zambia, such as ShopRite, Checkers and Spar. And the organization tries to do as much of the product distribution as possible so that the money stays with the farmers, not middlemen, improving local livelihoods and preserving local wildlife. (See also: Peanut Butter and Progress)
And all across sub-Saharan Africa, other organizations are providing farmers with the processing skills and materials they need to improve their incomes and support their families-and that can produce unexpected benefits, including wildlife, reducing food-born health risks, and improving access to education.
In Kenya, the Mazingira Institute is working to create awareness about climate change, human rights, and urban agriculture. And they're also training communities to learn better skills to increase income generation and well-being-including training in how to process foods to preserve them longer and make them more appealing to consumers.
Mazingira, for example, helped Esther Mjoki Maifa, an entrepreneur in Nairobi, capitalize on a growing interest among Kenyans for natural healthy products by training her to process groundnuts without any preserves or chemicals. It takes her about one day to produce 50 kilograms of groundnuts and she sells jars from 200-300 shillings each. Eventually, Ms. Maifa is hoping to make enough money from her products to purchase her own nut grinding machine. (See also: Mazingira Institute and NESALF: Training a New Breed of Farmers)
In Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, the East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) project is helping livestock farmers to improve the processing and preservation of milk in order to produce better tasting and longer lasting dairy products which are also safer for the consumer. EADD encourages farmers to join cooperatives (See Innovation of the Week: Farmers Groups and Cooperatives), giving them access to group owned and run refrigerated milk collection centers, significantly reducing the financial burden of the process. The milk is then transported to a milk processing facility and sent to market where the processed milk will receive a higher price than unpasteurized milk. It also stays good longer and reduces the risk of food borne illness. (See also: Improving Incomes with Milk Processing)
In Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia and Nigeria, the World Cocoa Foundation is providing cocoa farmers with hands-on training on production, pest and disease management and post-harvest techniques. The region accounts for nearly 70 percent of the world's cocoa production, 90 percent of which is grown on nearly 2 million small family farms. Almost 16 million people depend on this crop as their main source of income and being able to properly process cocoa can make a big difference in income for a family. One farmer in Côte d'Ivoire, Ekra Marceline, was able to more than quadruple her cocoa harvest after receiving training from a Farmer Field School supported by WCF. She was able to build a solar dryer to produce higher quality beans and the additional income she earns enabled her to send her children to school and build a new home for her family. (See also: Improving African Women's Access to Agriculture Training Programs)
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The highways in southern Africa are filled with trucks carrying food aid across the continent. In the past, much of the maize, rice, soy, and other foods loaded onto these trucks came not from African farmers, but from the United States. And while these shipments provided much needed calories to people in need, they also disrupted national and local markets by lowering prices for locally grown food.
But today, more and more of the crops providing food aid come from African farmers who are selling directly to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) through local procurement policies. In Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zambia, and several other nations in sub-Saharan Africa (as well as in Asia and Latin America), WFP is not only buying locally, but helping small farmers gain the skills necessary to be part of the global market.
The WFP's Progress for Profit (P4P) program, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the Belgian government, is working with the private sector, governments, and NGOs to provide an incentive for farmers to improve their crop management skills and produce high-quality food, create a market for surplus crops from small and low-income farmers, and promote locally processing and packaging of products.
In Zambia, WFP buys food directly from the Zambia Agricultural Commodity Exchange while remaining "invisible," says Felix Edwards of the Zambia P4P Program. This way, WFP Zambia doesn't distort prices and helps create an alternative market for farmers. WFP also works through its partners, including USAID's PROFIT program, to help farmers and farmer associations meet the quality standards required by the Exchange. As a result, they are preparing Zambian farmers to provide high-quality food aid not only to programs and consumers in their own country, but also potentially to growing regional and international markets.
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In talking further with members of the African civil society delegations about the current effects of climate change in their region, Robert Chimambo of Zambia's Civil Society Climate Change Network said that his central African nation of Zambia was "getting rains like we've never seen," while Kenya was experiencing terrible droughts.
Chimambo said his country "needed help yesterday, people are drowning now." He explained that the rains were flood much of the crops that were planted, while waterlogged soils were keeping people from planting crops and undermining the foundations of homes.
His comments were echoed by Tolbert Jallah, a Liberian working in Togo with the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in West Africa. He said nations in western Africa also used to have a six month dry season followed by a six month rainy season, but "now we have 10 months of rain."
Jallah described the situation in failed state of Togo, where part of the country is in drought, while the northern areas bordering Burkina Faso are flooded out. He said the drought had created such hot, dusty conditions that even someone like himself from a nearby country found it intolerably hot and dusty.
Both conditions are worsening Togo's food security. Jallah described animals being drowned and washed away in one region and being suffocated by the same heat that's dried up their water and forage in drought-stricken regions.
In his native Liberia, Jallah said that the city of Buchanan (like Togo's capital, Lome) was in danger of being inundated by the rising Atlantic ocean. Many seaside coconut plantations have already been inundated and he said he thought people on the beach would lose everything, "because we never know when the water will come at night." Floods from heavy rains also washed garbage into the cities, posing a health risk particularly to children.
Jallah also said that agriculture was at much at risk in Liberia as in Togo. He said rains often prevent farmers from clearing brush or getting to their farms when the creeks overflow. And forget planting in the rain.
Jallah and I talked a bit about the holdup with climate legislation in the US Senate. I told him that we were having problems getting them to do anything, and that some Senators didn't believe in global warming. He was well shocked.
"If any person says climate change is not real, I think that prson is sick," said Jallah, "I think that person can only be healed when he comes and sees the reality in the continent of Africa. ... The ocean is coming. What can these countries do to stop the ocean?"
Jallah added that he was "not impressed with the US government," or Obama's statements, saying that the US president doesn't show emotional intensity on climate change as he has on other issues. "President Obama, where is the world leadership," he asked.
Emphasizing his belief that it was a much of a concern for all faith-based organizations, as well as a moral country like the US, Jallah said that "if we turn a blind eye to climate change ... it's declaring one side of the world a graveyard."
Jallah said rich countries should offer an equitable deal, at least $20 billion per year in aid, instead of the "chicken feed money" that's on the table now.
This blog was written by Robert Blair at Huffington Post. We received permission from Mr. Blair to cross-post it here. We ask that, if you have a Huffington Post account, you leave any comments there.
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Zambian grocery stores are filled with processed foods from around the world, from crackers made in Argentina and soy milk from China to popular U.S. breakfast cereals. In addition to these foreign foods, however, are also variety of locally made and processed products, including indigenous varieties of organic rice, all-natural peanut butter and honey from the 
The highways in southern Africa are filled with trucks carrying food aid across the continent. In the past, much of the maize, rice, soy, and other foods loaded onto these trucks came not from African farmers, but from the United States. And while these shipments provided much needed calories to people in need, they also disrupted national and local markets by lowering prices for locally grown food.