Water!

For this one, I don't even have to write down anything...

http://www.charitywater.org/whywater/

Unfortunately, this is happening now.

Adding to the video:

• For instance, it not only affects poor people. It affects whole nations, poor and wealthy.
• Contamined water contaminates food... Contaminates people...
• It is not only having to walk for hours. On big cities, it means employees will not be able to go to work, because they get sick a number of days per year.
• It means unecessary resouces wasted with medical treatment and over crowded hospitals.
• (...)

Food for a Nation

Yet on the same subject posted before...

Inflation in Egypt is growing to the second digit, and most of this, is due to rising food prices. It means that now, after the revolution, food is still getting more and more expensive and the ones that suffer the most are the poorest people.
Poor people spend most or all their income with basic items such as food and water, this way, if the prices go up, hunger will increase.

Climatic changes are amongst the causes of increase on food price, but another considerable cause for this is lack of expertise of farmers on how to deal with the changes or how to manage their land to increase productivity.
Productivity- this is a key word in a country which territory is predominantly a desert.
Another issue that affects food availability and price is related to what is called bio security: Large scale contamination of crops and diseases spread amongst animals lead to critical drop on availability of dairy products and other food, whilst demand still growing. The result is well known, prices step up and people are once more affected.

CARE Egypt has got a history of good actions to improve the quality of life on the fields in Egypt and to spread technical knowledge on agriculture and breeding amongst farmers and breeders.
To read more on the efforts of CARE on helping Egyptians to have a better life, access the following link:http://www.care.org.eg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=156%3Aanr-intro&catid=41%3Aold&lang=en

At the moment, CARE Egypt has not got a regular volunteer program. People (usually interns) are chosen for specific programs and timeframes. For more info on how to apply for an opportunity to work with CARE Egypt team follow this link:
http://www.care.org.eg/index.php?option=com_jobgroklist&view=postings&Itemid=65&lang=en
or contact them directly:
http://www.care.org.eg/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=1&Itemid=62&lang=en

Donations to CARE Egypt would be sent to CARE USA with a note that it is earmarked for CARE Egypt
https://my.care.org/site/Donation2?df_id=9140&9140.donation=form1&7080.donation=form1
or
Select the tab "Donate Now" on this link to find more options on how to donate: http://www.care.org/

Hungry World

Future food security and sustainability is a topic that has generated much in the world over the last year. Recent estimates predict the world population to reach 7 billion by the end of this year. Consider two other facts at this point- Homo Sapiens have been on Earth for approximately 200,000 years and at end of the Second World War in 1945, the population was approximately 2.4 billion. In little over 65 years, we have added over 4 billion to our number! Feeding this number in a world with changing standard of living and diets is going to be a challenge. Over the last 3 decades, the world has responded with generosity of scale drives such as Live Aid, with millions provided. All too often this has ended up siphoned off by corrupt regimes and not to the local people who need it. A speech I watched recenly on TED was particularly inspiring( Link Below) and perhaps showed the importance of more targeted investment. While the speech was on water management, I believe there are some applicable lessons for farming.

http://www.ted.com/anupam_mishra_the_ancient_ingenuity_of_water_harvesting.html

I would like to highlight the local knowledge of one group of the many rural people of the world, whose ingenuity could give us ideas on how to survive in the changing world.

The 'char' or island dwellers of the floodplains of Bangladesh are people who are exceptional. They have no permanent home but continuously move between the islands which appear and submerge constantly with tide, lunar activity and rainfall. Despite this they manage to grow crops like okra by using floating gardens made out of hyacinth (See photo- From National Geographic).

With inland water getting too salty, they have converted fields into shrimp and crab farms. Among the organisations who help such people include the Bangladeshi Rural Advancement Committee(BRAC), who conduct research in many areas of agriculture involving local farmers. So if you are thinking you can help, they and other organisations have a lot of information on their web pages:

http://www.brac.net/

http://practicalaction.org/food-and-agriculture-4

http://www.careinternational.org.uk/what-we-do/climate-change

Solving the problem of keeping a potential population of 9 billion by 2050 is not one that one individual can solve alone. However, there are simple things we can all contribute to like changing our diet and wasting less food. Eating less meat will mean more land for farming and to quote Prince Charles during his recent speech in Georgetown University 'For every pound of beef produced in the industrial system, it takes two thousand gallon of water.' And as a recent report on the future of Food and Farming says, the global food system is living outside its means and 'decisions made now will disproportionately influence the future.' So lets try and influence it in the right way!