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Expertise
FOOD SECURITY AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
The “Food Security and Rural Development” unit aims at helping the victims of humanitarian crises or difficult economic situations recover their food autonomy.
In order to understand the diversity and complexity of the societies where we work, the unit adopts a systemic and multi-disciplinary approach. It focuses on the characteristics and constraints of the various ecosystems, on the socio-economic organization, on the dynamics of change, and on the interactions between these different elements studied at different levels of analysis. This approach highlights the local strategies and know how in the production systems, in the economic organization of households and in the socio-economic and cultural organization of society.
Dialogue with and direct consultation of the communities, as well as the involvement of local actors, are principles that enable us to elaborate and direct our actions, thus ensuring the relevance of our projects.
Post-crisis food security
- Evaluation of needs
- Setting-up of community facilities to restore agriculture or fishing activities
- Distribution of agricultural inputs (seeds, tools, etc.)
- Reconciliation guidance in conflicts related to water access or land issues
- Technical guidance (follow up, technical advise, training)
- Reinforcement of the producers' ability to develop a sustainable food system (reconstitution of local stocks of seed…)
Integrated projects in agriculture, breeding and fishing
- Crop cultivation for self-consumption (cereals, market gardening…)
- Market crop gardening and trees nurseries (setting-up, introduction of new suited varieties, support to irrigation…)
- Experimentation and pilot plots of land (diversity and technical itineraries) and popularization afterwards
- Construction of polders
- Breeding: animal health (vaccination, prophylaxis and treatment of animal diseases), nutrition and improvement of fodder resources (distribution of seeds and protection of pastures)
- Construction and rehabilitation of rural infrastructures (roads, tracks, markets)
Reinforcement of the capacities of local production units
- Community workshops to build traditional fishing boats
- Training of producers, trainers and rural development actors
- Seed banks
- Income-generating activities and micro-credits for local structures
- Support to local food and agriculture organizations (optimization of transformation, collection and trading…)
- Professionalization of local production units (cooperatives and other traditional collective organizations…)
Natural resources management
- Development of the agricultural and pastoral hydraulics (irrigated areas, wells, water tanks)
- Fight against desertification
- Ground preservation measures
- Forest conservation and valuation measures
- Bio diversity management
Improvement of eating habits
- Improvement and diversification of agricultural production
- Awareness-rising to eating habits and the nutrition/health relationship (balance and food hygiene)
- Development of varieties rich in essential nutriments (beta carotene, iron,…)
