Oxfam America Blog

Jim French is a regional advocacy lead and an agricultural specialist for Oxfam America. He is also a fifth-generation farmer and rancher in south-central Kansas.

Last week, our friend Terry Steinhour died in a tractor accident while moving hay on his farm. Along with my colleagues Rasa Dawson and Katie Danko, I wanted to take a moment to remember Terry, a kind and gentle soul and a true advocate for Oxfam.

Oxfam America knew about Terry Steinhour before Terry knew much about Oxfam. In 2005, Oxfam field organizers were looking for American farmers that could become spokespeople in our campaign to reform US commodity subsidies. We searched in cotton and soybean fields, pastures, dairy barns, and sheep pens across the nation.

Terry Steinhour during his visit to Africa. Photo: Rasa Dawson / Oxfam America

Following a lead, Oxfam organizer Katie Danko reached out to a corn, soybean, and beef farmer outside of Springfield, Illinois. After a very short introduction during corn harvest, Terry had Katie behind the wheel of his combine.

“I had no idea what I was doing, and before I knew it too much corn went into the machine and stopped it cold. I thought it was broken,” recalls Katie.

But Terry gently handled the situation, cleaned out the stalks that plugged the header, and continued to build a wonderful relationship with Katie and the whole Oxfam team. In the next three years, Terry would write opinion pieces for area newspapers, meet with legislators, and take calls from radio interviewers from around the world.

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Since writing about President Obama’s speech in Ghana I have continued to see many fascinating comments about it rolling around the internet. The AfricaFocus web site has organized several reactions from Africa that are critical and very revealing. If you want some perspective on how Africans perceive their own challenges, and how they are reacting to the speech, check it out. Particularly notable are comments about how the US has failed to acknowledge its role in supporting dictators, influencing political transitions, and supporting conflicts during the Cold War. Firoz Manji of Pambazuka News noted this in a clever, alternative version of Obama’s speech called “Obama in Ghana: The speech he might have made.”

Trade came up in an editorial in Public Agenda in Accra, Ghana, which pointed out that “if the developed countries would open just three percent of their markets to African countries, these countries would earn more income from exports trade than the total foreign aid doled out to them in any given year. Mr. Obama shied away from the controversial issue of US farm subsidies which is killing small scale farmers, especially cotton farmers in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.” Oxfam has been pointing this fact out for years, so it was good to see that the idea about trade and subsidies are still relevant, especially to Africans who have so much to gain from trade.

So what are your reactions to Obama’s speech? And if you could rewrite it as Manji did, what would you say?

Indigenous woman in Cusco, Peru, shows visitors where her farm has been taken over by a copper mine. Photo by Diego Nebel/Oxfam America

Yesterday, my colleague Keith in Washington, DC, released a paper about violence in Peru over mining.

Over the years I have visited a few communities in Peru where violent conflict has erupted; I have spoken with people who’ve been beaten, imprisoned, or persecuted by the government for standing up for their rights. The alleged crimes vary. Refusing to sell your farm to a mining company—or holding out for a better price—comes up a lot. One indigenous woman from the highlands of Cusco told me how the police threw her in jail, accusing her of trespassing on her own land! Her farm is now part of a copper mine. It took two decades before she was compensated as part of a conflict-resolution effort Oxfam helped create. It took years to sort out the rights violations, relocate farmers, and set up a development fund.

Right now, the same mistakes are being made in northern Peru, where a British and Chinese mining company is trying to set up a copper mine in the Rio Blanco region. Read the rest of this entry »

Caption: Muluberhan Hailu, of Oxfam partner the Relief Society of Tigray, trains Adi Ha teff farmers to use a rain gauge to measure seasonal rainfall on their farms. Photo: Stephane de Messieres / Oxfam America

If you’ve ever eaten a meal at a traditional Ethiopian restaurant, as I did last weekend (thanks, Addis Red Sea!), you’ve tried teff. It’s the grain used to make injera, the spongy, slightly sour bread that serves as both plate and utensil for your food.

Oddly enough, a couple of days later I heard about teff again at work–or, to be exact, teff farmers, in the village of Adi Ha, in Tigray, Ethiopia.

Newsweek just came out with Issues 2009, a guide for President-elect Obama to tackle those few, minor problems that the world faces this year. Among the solutions is a new Oxfam project, developed in partnership with a private company and a research institute, which could serve as a model for helping poor people survive climate change.

It starts in Adi Ha, where forty percent of households rely on their income from teff, a staple grain in Ethiopia. But recent rises in temperature and decreases in rainfall, striking a region already prone to drought, have made it hard for these farmers to harvest a good crop.

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Earlier this week, my boss, Jane, walked into the office carrying a big basket of pears. Picked from her tree and lovingly wrapped in orange towels — like babies in a Moses basket — they were small and a little dark. They reminded me of the food you get from a local farm, not quite as shiny and unblemished as the stuff in the grocery aisles, but better-tasting, perhaps, thanks to all that character.

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Following the political news in Africa is hard from a distance, but if you are like me and you need to keep up on what is happening on this vast, diverse, and fascinating continent there are a few good resources for news. One is allafrica.com, a site that aggregates news and commentary from African newspapers and other sources, so you can get news on Africa by Africans.

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Here’s what’s in our fridge at the moment: red leaf lettuce, carrots, garlic scapes, spinach, broccoli, onions, parsley, basil, turnips, and radishes—all grown at a farm down the road in which we have bought a share. It’s part of a movement called community-supported agriculture. And judging by the waiting list of people who would like to join the initiative in our Massachusetts town, supporting small farms is smart way to get food—whether you live in one of the richest countries in the world or one of the poorest. Read the rest of this entry »