Together for sustainable food security in Burundi
10 Feb 2016 • News
Bringing people together to put food on the table
This ease is exemplified by the work of Episcopal Relief & Development, which is conducted in partnership with the Anglican Church of Burundi’s Community Development office (PEAB in French) in Bujumbura, Burundi. Together, Episcopal Relief & Development and PEAB implement a comprehensive sustainable livelihoods program. The goal is to support small farming families to work toward greater food security for their households. This translates into turning the often one-meal-a-day routine into a habit of consuming three meals each day that include more protein, vegetables, and fruits.
PEAB and Episcopal Relief & Development continuously work to foster partnerships within the country and region by cultivating relationships with technical branches of the government, research institutions, private enterprises, and other community development organizations. For example, PEAB is currently working with the following groups to help small farmers optimize productivity on their land:
The Institute of Agricultural Research of Burundi (ISABU): ISABU works to research, store, and disseminate quality crop varieties in Burundi.
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA): IITA is a global agricultural research organization with an office in Burundi. Their Burundi work focuses on combatting the disease known as Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW), which is causing widespread damage to banana crops across East Africa. The Institute is focusing on methods that farmers and governments can use to limit the spread of disease.
Agrobiotech: Agrobiotech is a Belgian-linked enterprise focused on the production of clean planting material for bananas. They use tissue culture to produce disease-free banana plantlets, which are then sold. Use of tissue-culture plantlets is providing a new opportunity for farmers to fight this disease.
Together, these institutes are generating knowledge on existing and new crop varieties appropriate for Burundi. They work to preserve desirable characteristics in varieties that are currently in use, and to continuously find ways to improve these varieties to achieve a higher yield, better resistance to pests or diseases, or more resilience to climate challenges (like drought). They also pull knowledge from the larger research network on policy and farm-level methods that can be used to improve productivity, and work to adapt these suggestions for the local context.
This knowledge, however, is not beneficial unless it can be shared and used by farmers in the country. PEAB serves as a liaison for an extensive network of more than 19,000 small farmers by connecting these institutions with members of the network.