Earth Day 2023: Helping Farmers THRIVE

The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and maintain it. —Genesis 2:15 (NET)

Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22, where individuals and organizations from around the world raise awareness for good environmental stewardship. One of the ecological areas that requires urgent attention is agriculture, especially smallholder farming, which is the main source of food and income for hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty worldwide.

According to the World Bank, smallholder famers are among the poorest people on the planet. It is no exaggeration to say that for the majority of these farmers, life and death depend on ecosystems functioning properly: for rain, at the right time, to water their crops, for bees to pollinate, and for reliable temperature cycles. Yet these farmers often lack resources and training to manage their on-farm and off-farm environments in methods that lead to flourishing soil, forests, fields, and rivers. And though smallholder farmers’ footprint is minimal in global environmental problems, they bear the brunt of the negative impacts of the planet’s ecosystem degradation.

Simply stated: If we want all people to have nutritious food and clean water on an ongoing basis, we must be concerned about the connection between farmers and ecosystems.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas, and established it on the waters. Psalm 24:1-2 (NIV)

Dreams of potatoes

Caring for our ecosystems requires training farmers how to actively manage their land — and the surrounding environment. The result will be thriving farms and a flourishing planet.

Take Tulio and his family for example.

To read our entire article, please go to:

Earth Day 2023: Helping farmers thrive (worldvisionphilanthropy.org)