Post Tagged with: "irrigation"

Change in the Air

I feel like I’m getting spoiled taking all these helicopter rides. Aerial footage is definitely worth the effort if you can take the wind burn and the pilot’s bill that comes along with it. Drones work well too, yes – just not when you have 200 square kilometers to cover. Here I document the Millennium Challenge Corporation‘s Senegal Compact, which has rehabilitated highways and markets in the north and south and brought renewed farming abilities to the Senegal River Valley through an irrigation infrastructure overhaul. MCC is a foreign aid agency established by the US Congress that applies new philosophies to the implementation of development assistance with the aim of increasing economic growth. Rogue states and kleptocracies need not apply. Countries must pass a number of indicators including control of corruption, civil liberties, and trade policy to be eligible for a compact. Senegal, being one of Africa’s most stable democracies, had[…]

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Making New Ground

Farmland that had reverted to dust after years of drought is being reclaimed through innovative methods. Thanks to Matemai Mbira Group of Harare, Zimbabwe for the use of their beautiful music in this piece.

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Sevu & the Sand Dam

Want to know what real hunger is like?  Don’t ask an American. The video below, narrated by Sevu, a small farmer in Kenya, gives the most poignant description of hunger I’ve ever heard.  Luckily, that’s not all this video is about. It used to be that the seasonal river that runs through Sevu’s village would quickly become dry again a few days after the rain.  Now, however, a series of small sand dams stationed throughout its course have kept the river flowing and have allowed Sevu and his family to farm year-round, thereby increasing their income and access to food.  Sevu and the family are doing so well now, in fact, that he was able to place an international phone call to me yesterday just to see how my wife and I are doing.  The dams are part of a larger program introduced in the area by Lutheran World Relief to[…]

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