Ending Hunger and Poverty While Caring for the Earth

See how farmers are increasing incomes while protecting the environment.

Building sustainable food systems is critical for feeding a global population nearing 9 billion — and smallholder farmers are central to combating hunger and malnutrition, while caring for the Earth.

The largest 1% of farms worldwide — those larger than 120 acres — operate?more than 70%?of the world’s farmland, and industrial agriculture consumes large quantities of pesticides, energy and freshwater resources, producing significant volumes of greenhouse gas emissions.

Heifer supports smallholders to incorporate?climate-smart agricultural practices ?to protect and preserve the environment. These include the?thoughtful use of resources and byproducts ?— like using livestock waste to?power biogas stoves ?for clean cooking fuel — and constructing solar-powered hatcheries, to keep growing chicks warm using renewable energy.

What is Climate-Smart Agriculture?

Climate-smart agriculture is an approach to managing land that aims to address the intersecting challenges of food security and a changing climate.

Climate-smart, sustainable agriculture practices not only replenish the land and rejuvenate ecosystem services, but also boost food production, strengthen local economies and help to mitigate climate change.

Heifer works alongside smallholder farmers, livestock producers, farm input suppliers and policy makers to promote low-cost farming processes that increase production, build resilience and promote environmental sustainability.

Four ways in which we promote sustainable food around the world:

1. Stewarding animals, land and water
2. Improving livestock farming ecosystems
3. Responsibly managing waste
4. Adopting sustainable energy sources

As the climate changes and becomes increasingly unpredictable, so do farmers’ chances of growing a healthy crop. To help protect their yields and ensure a successful season, farmers are often forced to resort to using chemical inputs.??

On the Galápagos Islands,?Heifer is helping?farmers feed their communities without harming the environment, by building greenhouses. These climate-controlled spaces allow farmers to grow food year-round, cutting back on the region’s over-reliance on imported food.

Read five other challenges we are helping farmers face.

Growing Plants Without Soil

Smallholder farmers?in Bihar, India often own limited or no land of their own. Soilless nurseries, the method of growing plants in a mineral solution or other nutrient-rich substrate, enable them to make efficient use of existing agricultural and financial resources, and produce higher quality saplings.

In a soilless nursery, seeds are sown in the substrate of cocopeat — a soil conditioner made from coconut husk — and provided with moisture until they begin to germinate. The tender saplings are then fed vital nutrients and carefully preserved in a greenhouse until they are ready to be transplanted into the ground.

This technique directs resources to the saplings and reduces the human labor of digging and weeding, water waste, and instances of fungal diseases in the crop.

What is Regenerative Agriculture?

Regenerative agriculture is about stewarding the land and encouraging nature to flourish. It's a method of farming that restores biodiversity and promotes healthy, living soil.

Every decision we make as farmers — including how we graze our animals, how we treat the soil and what type of inputs we choose to use on the land — has a consequence.

These principles are significantly different than conventional agriculture, in which the intention is often to extract the greatest productivity from the land in the short term, at the expense of soil health. Rather, the intention of regenerative agriculture is to increase the land’s ability to heal and restore itself, so the productivity below the soil surface remains abundant.

Read about the benefits of regenerative agriculture on our Heifer Ranch in Arkansas.

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