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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Iraq: Finding the story January 30, 2011
I work with Awatif in southern Iraq, but we had to travel across the country to get to know one another.
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Zimbabwe: Urban gardens nourish families and communities January 17, 2011
Until last year, 81-year-old Lucia Mbanje and her family of six, all residents of impoverished Sakubva township in Mutare, could not afford a balanced diet due to the prohibitive cost of vegetables in Zimbabwe as a result of the economic crisis.
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Haiti: Interviews in the camps, a year later January 11, 2011
A few days ago, I went out to the Mojapta displacement camp, where Mercy Corps is providing clean water and sanitation to families, to ask earthquake survivors about their experiences today — and of the last year. Gilberte Jean, 23
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Indonesia: Bringing healthy street food to Tegal Alur December 27, 2010
“Hi friends! Come to My Child's Café… choose and get various healthy snacks here,” said a catchy jingle that played during over the grand opening of My Child Café and its healthy kitchen in West Jakarta's impoverished Tegal Alur neighborhood.
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Uganda: Small farm, nutritious food, healthy pregnancy December 20, 2010
The Dwog-Paco women’s group is located 44 kilometers from Kitgum, one of northern Uganda’s largest towns, along a muddy terrain road deep inside the Acholi ethnic group's homeland.
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Zimbabwe: Beauty Jokonya with crop December 15, 2010
Beauty Jokonya, a local farmer in Zimbabwe's Murehwa district, with bounty from her crop field — which, with help from Mercy Corps, she and her husband irrigate with a treadle pump.
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Zimbabwe: Better living through treadle pumps December 15, 2010
One of the greatest challenges that smallholder farmers face in Zimbabwe is how to irrigate bigger plots and get higher returns from their pieces of land.
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Uganda: ‘Staying lonely is not easy’ December 8, 2010
In a place for the displaced, two women share a common bond; one wisened and weathered, the other young, ambitious and full of ideas.
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Afghanistan: Searching for the next Frank Perdue November 15, 2010
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Tajikistan: Turning water into cash November 15, 2010
“For the last three years, my yields have been 30 percent of what they were before,” says Sabur Kumischev, as he makes a sweeping motion with his hand indicating the land where his crops are grown. “All I could grow was corn. The other farmers could only grow corn.