Agriculture & Food
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Photo: Erin Gray/Mercy Corps
Most of the world doesn't have the benefit of picking up food from the corner store — they grow it themselves. A family's plot of land has to provide for their nutritional and economic needs.
When food shortages occur due to drought and conflict, Mercy Corps helps prevent hunger and treat malnutrition in the most vulnerable — children, pregnant women, the elderly and the displaced.
Distributing food is necessary in times of crisis, and we always try to procure food from local suppliers to save money, ensure faster delivery and support of the local economy. Learn more about the success of this model in Niger (PDF) ▸
In addition to emergency responses, we quickly focus on long-term solutions that strengthen harvests and livestock for the long-term. Mercy Corps works with families to ensure quality inputs, smart land use, good crop yields and a fair price at local markets.
All stories about Agriculture & Food
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Libya: Talking chicken feed in Benghazi May 4, 2011
Mercy Corps' Jill Morehead (right) talks with a Libyan farmer about the challenges of raising chickens during the country's ongoing conflict and crisis. Dwindling chicken feed supplies are driving up prices, making life harder for farmers and consumers alike.
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Libya: Got chicken? May 4, 2011
Two weeks ago, we walked into the grocery store here in Benghazi, Libya to look for chicken.
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Guatemala: The different sparks of a cooking recipe April 29, 2011
Part of the health and nutrition strengthening strategies used by Mercy Corps' PROCOMIDA program with Guatemalan communities consists of recipe demonstrations to beneficiary mothers.
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Nepal: Bamboo and bio-engineering interventions for mitigation of riverbank erosion April 27, 2011
Floods are a major hazard in Nepal contributing to endemic poverty, an occurrence that is likely to increase and magnify due to climate change.
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Guatemala: Traveling the roads of resilient children April 26, 2011
I recently went to visit the communities of Yalchactic I and Salvador Chizol, near the city of Cobán in Guatemala's mountainous Alta Verapaz region. A large portion of the access roads to these communities are in very bad shape.
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Timor-Leste: Sharing the responsibility to grow more food April 19, 2011
After a bumpy six hour drive from our head office in Dili, we finally reached our first destination on my recent field visit in Timor-Leste: the village of Maununu.
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Fasting for the poor and hungry March 31, 2011
For the last four days, I've been helping fight hunger by changing my diet. I've chosen a diet similar to that of many of the people Mercy Corps works with around the world: basic staple foods like rice, beans, greens and a bit of fruit.
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Kosovo: A life-changing project for a Roma community March 30, 2011
Ramadan Sahiti is a 37-year-old Roma farmer from the village of Koshare/Košare in southern Kosovo.
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Timor-Leste: Farmers in Timor-Leste store up for a better future March 22, 2011
The road to Ainaro District from Dili —the capital city of Timor-Leste, one of the world's newest countries — has never been as bad as it is now, at least in my experience.
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Somalia: A lot has changed February 16, 2011
It was a long journey full of rough terrains and sleepless nights while we were assessing the areas that have been hit by droughts in the Bari Region of Puntland, Somalia. Farmers and pastoralists lost most of their assets and suffered from lack of water.