SWFF Program News
December 19, 2016
 
Conservation South Africa - Meat Naturally Pty's Livestock Auction Yields Big Profits
The recent drought in South Africa has threatened the viability of farms and communities across the country, but the Conservation South Africa (CSA )
- Meat Naturally Pty  livestock auction held late last month in Mzongwana, southeastern South Africa, showed not want, but plenty. The 47 participating farmers, nearly a quarter of whom were women, earned a total of almost $43,000 for their livestock, about $14,000 more than the last auction held in June.  The auction represents the success of CSA's work to improve access for rural farmers to the red-meat market.
Innovator News
  • Congratulations to all Securing Water for Food innovators who met their targets and who will be continuing on to Program Year Three. They are:  Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies (Y3), aQysta (Y3), MetaMeta/Salt Farm Texel (Y3), Practical Action (Y3), Reel Gardening (Y3),  MyRain LLC  (Y3),  FutureWater (Y3), World Hope International (Y3), GreenHeat (Y2), Conservation South Africa (Y2), Institute for University Cooperation (ICU) - Peru (Y2), ICU/Groasis Waterboxx (Y2), Si Technologies (Y2), Water Governance Institute (Y2), Ignitia AB (Y2) and International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (Y2).
  • aQysta won the  Siemens Foundation's Empowering People Award Third Place Prize last month along with €20,000. You can view aQysta's feature video shot by the Siemens Foundation here.
  • This year alone, MyRain LLC expanded its drip irrigation and related hardware to 500 retailers in India and saved over 1.4 billion liters of water.
SWFF Updates
  • Securing Water for Food 2016 Annual Report: Securing Water for Food (SWFF) released its annual report, highlighting the program's successes in the last year, while identifying places for growth.  The report was overwhelmingly positive after an external mid-term performance evaluation from earlier this fall. As a result, the founding partners have extended the program through 2020 and promised an additional $2.5 million of funding for program support. 
  • Thus far, SWFF has received more than 1,500 applications from more than 90 countries across four calls for innovations . SWFF innovators have helped save approximately 2 billion liters of water, helped produce nearly 290,000 tons of food, and reached more than one million farmers and other customers. In the last year alone, SWFF innovators helped farmers worldwide increase crop yields by as much as 97 percent while creating more than $1.8 million in sales, with an average profit margin of five percent. Although most SWFF innovators are still working toward commercialization readiness, these small businesses are already seeing real impact on the ground. 
  • SWFF has identified multiple ways to grow in Project Year 3. The program will focus on providing technical assistance and support to identify which innovators are investor-ready, while also helping innovators understand their own investor readiness. SWFF will take significant strides towards balancing the need for streamlined, cost-efficient and cost-effect support, and the need for local support that is demand-driven. Lastly, SWFF will continue its work to strengthen innovators' gender focus without imposing gender norms that lack cultural context in the next year of the program.
Industry News
  • Niger Feels Ripple Effect of Boko Haram as Fears of Food Shortage Spread ( NYT )
  • Zimbabwe Drought, Hunger Push Farmers to Seek Greener Pastures (VOA)
  • Africa's Biggest Hydropower Plant May Soon Run Out of Water (Quartz)
  • 'I Can't Abandon My Land': The Livelihoods Threatened by Kenya's Tana River Plans (The Guardian)
  • The Economic Implications of Global Water Scarcity (Global Risk Insights)
  • Uganda: Drought Will Worsen Our Economy, Govt Admits (AllAfrica)
  • Agriculture and Food Security at Heart of Climate Change Action (ReliefWeb)
  • Drought to Intensify in Kenya in 2017, New Early Warning System Shows (Reuters)
  • Managing Water is Key to Adapting African Agriculture to Climate Change (Mail & Guardian)
  • Surface Qater is Disappearing - and Reappearing - Globally (Ars Technica)
  • South Africa's Water Crisis is Just Another Tragic Consequence of State Capture (Business Tech)
  • Drought Strikes Centuries-Old California Oaks (Phys Org)
  • Meet Four Young Farmers Who Are Rising to the Challenge of Water Scarcity in the Western U.S. (Alternet)
  • So You Think You Can't Farm in the Desert? (Mail & Guardian)
1001 Words
 
Conservation South Africa held a successful auction last month. Of the 118 animals sold at auction, 92 percent fetched an average 11 cents per pound higher than in June.