A REGULAR SCOOP OF NEWS RELATING TO THE INVALUABLE CONTRIBUTION OF AFRICAN WOMEN FARMERS TO FOOD SECURITY. THE NEWS LINKS WITH THE ENVIRONMENT TIMES' LONG TERM PROJECT TO GIVE FINANCIAL HELP TO THE NATIONAL WOMEN FARMERS' ASSOCIATION OF THE GAMBIA, WEST AFRICA. (SEE BOTTOM OF THIS ARTICLE TO SEE FURTHER DETAILS AND HOW YOU CAN HELP THE WOMEN FARMERS WITH YOUR OLD MOBILE PHONES OR PRINTER CARTRIDGES)

Women Are Behind 80 Percent of Continent's Food Production
Published 31 October 2009 by allAfrica.com
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) considers gender mainstreaming, or involving women in farming development efforts, an essential component of its efforts to improve food security in Africa. This is especially the case when it comes to economic empowerment. Annina Lubbock is Ifad's senior technical advisor for gender and household food security. She oversees how to improve the impact of Ifad's programs, both in terms of loans and grants, as well as empowering women to achieve gender equality. FULL STORY CLICK HERE.

Agriculture Group Finds Targeting Women Improves Food Security, Family Incomes
Published 29 October 2009 by allAfrica.com
Gender inequalities are a key impediment to achieving food security in many households in sub-Saharan Africa. Although women do most of the farming on the continent, growing an estimated 70 percent of its food, they often have little control over the money that their crops generate. FULL STORY CLICK HERE.

Helene D. Gayle's Testimony at 'A Call to Action on Food Security - The Administration's Global Strategy'
Published 29 October 2009 by allAfrica.com
The following is testimony by Dr. Helene D. Gayle, President and Chief Executive Officer of CARE USA, delivered before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, on the subject of global food security.
Extract halfway into the article about one of the five principles being called for: Address the underlying causes of hunger and food insecurity by investing in everything from research to the development of better seeds, to innovative insurance programs. Women will be at the center of these efforts, because the majority of the world's farmers are women, they are a wise investment, they invest their earning into their families and communities, and pay back loans at a higher rate. FULL STORY CLICK HERE.

Land Tenure And Women Empowerment in the Gambia
Published on 26th October 2009 by Foroyaa Online, written by Isatou Bittaye
Research Findings by Mrs. D’Almeida Madam Ralphina Phillot Almeida, a senior lecturer in the University of The Gambia, on Wednesday, 21 October, presented her research on land tenure system in the Gambia and women empowerment at a lecture at the Paradise Suites Hotel. FULL STORY CLICK HERE

Women farmers call for more land allocation
Published 21st October 2009 by the Gambian Daily Observer 
Women farmers in the five regions of the Gambia; namely Western Region, Lower River Region, North Bank Region, Central River Region and Upper River Region, have expressed the need for more land allocation and ownership to them in order for them to actively participate in farming activities in country. FULL STORY CLICK HERE

Flashback: Ending Africa's Hunger? Gates Foundation & Monsanto
Published in sott.net (Signs of the Times)as an rss feed from an original article in The Nation by Raj Patel, Eric Holt-Gimenez & Annie Shattuck
Extract: The first Green Revolution spawned and exacerbated many social divisions, especially around access to land and resources, since the scale required by Green Revolution technologies meant that it was systematically biased against smallholders. The Gates Foundation is clearly aware of the importance of smallholder agriculture; but a leaked internal strategy document suggests that something else is more important: "Over time, this [strategy] will require some degree of land mobility and a lower percentage of total employment involved in direct agricultural production." "Land mobility" is an Orwellian term meaning the land stays where it is but the people on it are driven off. The foundation stands behind this idea, saying that peasants will head to cities "because there are a lot of them who don't want to be farmers [and] people make their own choices." FULL STORY CLICK HERE

Bill Gates sets eye on 'next green revolution'
Published 19th October 2009 by EurActiv.com as an RSS feed with Reuters
As preparations for the world summit on food security next month speed up, Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of software giant Microsoft, is urging governments, donors, researchers, farmer groups and environmentalists to overcome "ideological" divisions about technological solutions to increase agricultural productivity in Africa. The fight to end hunger is being hurt by environmentalists who insist that genetically modified (GM) crops cannot be used in Africa, Gates said on Thursday (15 October). He said GM crops, fertiliser and chemicals are important tools - although not the only tools - to help small farms in Africa boost production. "This global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two," Gates said in his first address on agriculture, made during the annual World Food Prize forum. FULL STORY CLICK HERE

ENVIRONMENT TIMES AND NAWFA
ENVIRONMENT TIMES WOULD LIKE TO LET YOU KNOW ABOUT OUR LONG TERM CAMPAIGN OF RECYCLING MOBILE PHONES TO HELP WOMEN FARMERS IN THE GAMBIA, WEST AFRICA - ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT IN THESE TIMES OF RISING FOOD PRICES. IF YOU THINK THE CREDIT CRUNCH IS HITTING YOUR FAMILY BUDGET HARD - SPARE A THOUGHT FOR THOSE FARMING IN THE TOUGH SAHELIAN ENVIRONMENT, JUST SOUTH OF THE SAHARA, WHERE STAPLE FOOD HAS RECENTLY MORE THAN DOUBLED IN PRICE.

The Gambian-run National Women Farmers' Association has successfully supported 48,000 women working in 74 co-operative village groups since the 1990's, increasing their wealth and food security to cope with and overcome a lack of national infrastructure, food dumping from countries with subsidised agriculture and adverse global financial and climate changes.

Environment Times has been helping support NAWFA since 2005 via a partnership with Regenersis, Europe’s largest mobile phone recycling and reuse provider to generate cash for NAWFA, and lately also with printer cartridge recyclers KMP.

OLD MOBILES
Regenersis set up a freepost account for us that is simple for you to use. You simply pop in your old mobiles into a padded envelope and write or label it up to:
FREEPOST
GREEN GAMBIA
It’s as simple as that! It would be great if company or organisations could collect their old mobiles en-masse after they have been upgraded. We do get a report from Regenersis of the phones received but it would also be great if you could remember to email the Environment Times Editor, Duncan Ashcroft, if you have popped a bag in the post, or would like a padded envelope from us. Email: duncan@environmenttimes.co.uk It's no problem if you don't email though!

This recycling can be carried out in confidence because Regenersis is a responsible company that is calling for improved industry standards to its own particular level. They are demanding that every mobile phone reuse and recycling company clear the data from every handset received to protect consumers from the danger of identity theft, ban the export of non-working handsets which could end up as e-waste in developing countries, and to operate a zero landfill policy for all products which are not suitable for reuse.

In our high-tech throwaway society there's an estimated 18 million mobile phone handsets replaced each year and some 90 million sitting in desk drawers and toy boxes across the country. Regenersis currently process over 250,000 phones a month.

Our partnership with the National Women Farmers’ Association (NAWFA) goes towards supporting their existing work of :

• Provision of low cost seeds, tools and equipment
• Co-operatives and farm marketing, producing good prices
• Assistance with training and literacy
• Setting up of added-value food processing in small factories
• Efficient crop production in times of rising food prices
• Allowing the women farmers to re-invest back into their families

So the more companies, organisations, schools and individuals that join our charitable initiative, the more difference can be made to the NAWFA organisation's women farmers, their livelihoods and families. Women hold the key to ending hunger in The Gambia. They assume responsibility for household food security, and NGOs like NAWFA are working to give them the required resources to grow sufficient food and to re-invest money back into their families and co-operatives for education, health and further trade.

YOU CAN START STRAIGHT AWAY BY SENDING UNWANTED MOBILES TO THE FREEPOST ADDRESS IN THE ABOVE ARTICLE, OR EMAIL: duncan@environmenttimes.co.uk for further information or to be included in the printer cartridge recycling initiative.

CARTRIDGES
The recyclers we use, KMP Crusader Manufacturing with a UK branch in King’s Lynn, offer a free drop box delivery and full sack collection collection, nevertheless if the sacks have too many cartridges they can’t recycle it becomes a cost to them for licensed disposal and becomes unviable, plus the women farmer project receives hardly any money. Therefore although it is free it would be great if the majority in the sacks are what they can use.

These are the makes of toners they can recycle for use with laser printers – Brother, Canon, Dell, Lexmark, Hewlett Packard, and Samsung.

On the inkjet printer side they can handle some of the cartridges from Cannon, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Lexmark, Olivetti and Samsung.