Food security in times of climate change
Zero hunger by 2030 - this is the goal the UN has set itself. Projects from Germany are helping achieve this.
Miriam Hoffmeyer ,
17.05.2024 
Better diets for young children in India
Despite India’s rapid economic development, 35 percent of children under the age of five are still undernourished in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Many parents do not know how important a varied diet is for a child’s development. Since 2015, the German-Indian project “Food and Nutrition Security, Enhanced Resilience” run by the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has been providing further training to state social workers so that they can pass on their knowledge about a healthy diet. Training courses have already been carried out in around 5,000 villages.
In addition, 20 communal gardens were created at the start of the project where women can grow vegetables, allowing them not only to produce healthy food for their families but also obtain a source of independent income. This concept has proven so successful that similar gardens are now being set up in around 600 other villages.
Adaptation to climate change in Senegal
In the southern part of Senegal and neighbouring Guinea Bissau, soils are becoming salinised as a result ofclimate change. This is having a negative impact on the cultivation of rice in particular. In the past years, Caritas International and project partners have restored almost 370 hectares of rice-growing land in around 40 communities. To this end, mangrove forestshave been replantedto protect the coast from waves, and dykes have been built. At the same time, rice farmers switched to using new varieties that are adapted to shorter rainy seasons.
Yields have meanwhile almost doubled. Furthermore, the new dykes allow large fish ponds to be established in which to breed carp, sompat grunt and mullet. This also served to revive the region’s traditional fish pond industry.
Kinakoni – a village in Kenya combats drought
In the Kenyan village of Kinakoni, the aid agency Welthungerhilfe and the German magazine “Stern” launched an unusual project in 2021: Together with startups from Nairobi and the villagers themselves, solutions are sought to the most pressing problems in terms of droughts and the associated food shortages. The goal is to take innovations from the capital to the rural region and then, if they prove successful, to implement them in othervillages that are plagued by drought.
To improve the water supply, tanks have been installed in Kinakoni that collect rainwater runoff from rocks. In addition, a trial vegetable field is providing good yields despite a persistent water shortage.
