Upgrading local food production

In Latin America, UNIFEM is supporting a revival of indigenous foods to counter the displacement of traditional agriculture by cash crops (for export) and the incidence of malnutrition in poor households. The UNIFEM-supported Andean Women's Food Technology project aims to identify, document and share, indigenous food cycle technologies which would enable peasant women farmers to increase household production and put more food on the table. Native cereals which can be relied upon to produce year after year without the need for expensive fertilizers are emphasized.

A study of the specific cultivation, preservation and storage techniques for some selected staple crops in the food farming community of Ayirebi, near Akyem Oda in southeastern Ghana found that the traditional subsistence methods of Ayirebi farming households are well adapted to the social and geographical environments of the region. By extension it is argued that the long-term future of developing African communities may well lie in building up thriving rural communities producing the food needed by the wider population. However, before this can be achieved, there is the need to understand the particular food cultivation strategies of local communities. Such micro-level studies will provide the specificities vital to formulating and implementing a general agenda for national agricultural and economic development.