IS IT POSSIBLE?
Sharing Community Resources
Sharing is Caring
Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss | Activism, environmental activism
In a shareable world, things like car sharing, clothing swaps, childcare coops, potlucks and cohousing - See more at:
The convergence of environmental awareness and consumer culture has created a whole new movement today whereby
sharing is cool. Indeed, some environmentalists view sharing as key to maintaining our quality of life and our sanity in an
increasingly cluttered world. “Sharing is a relatively simple concept and a basic part of human life,” reports Janelle Orsi on
Shareable, an online magazine that tells the story of sharing. “What’s new is that people are applying sharing in innovative
and far-reaching ways, many of which require complex planning, new ways of thinking and organizing, and new
technologies. In short, people are taking sharing to new levels, ranging from relatively simple applications of sharing to
community-wide sharing initiatives-and beyond.” “In a shareable world, things like car sharing, clothing swaps, childcare
coops, potlucks, and cohousing make life more fun, green, and affordable,” reports Shareable. “When we share, not only is
a better life possible, but so is a better world.”
The non-profit Freecycle Network, which runs a Craigslist-style website where people can list items they want to give away,
pioneered using the Internet to facilitate diverting reusable goods from landfills when it launched back in 2003. To date,
more than nine million individuals across 5,000 different regions have used the group’s freecycle.org website to find new
homes for old items. According to Shareable, other examples such as Zipcar, Wikipedia, Kiva and Creative Commons
show how successful sharing can be. “They show what’s possible when we share. They show that we don’t act merely for
our own good, but go out of our way to contribute to the common good. They show that we can solve the crises we face,
and thrive as never before. They show that a new world is emerging where the more you share the more respect you get,
and where life works because everyone helps each other.”
Shareable and the Center for a New American Dream, a non-profit that highlights the connections between consumption,
quality of life and the environment, have collaborated on the production of the new “Guide to Sharing,” a free downloadable
booklet loaded with practical ideas about exchanging stuff, time, skills and space. Some of the ideas in the guide include:
organizing a community swap; starting a local toy, seed or tool library; launching a skills exchange where community
members can swap professional skills like carpentry or grant-writing; or setting up a food, transportation or gardening co-
op. Some other sharing tips include car-sharing, gift circles, sharing backyard chickens with neighbors and launching a
“free market” where people meet to trade skills and stuff. For her part, Janelle Orsi envisions a future where public land is
dedicated to community gardening, public libraries also lend tools, equipment and other goods, and citywide bike sharing,
carpooling and wifi programs are all the rage. Orsi and others warn we had better get used to sharing, as it is here to stay.
CONTACTS:
Freecycle Network, www.freecycle.org;
Shareable, www.shareable.net;
Center for a New American Dream, www.newdream.org;
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Uganda
Hasifa Nakaziba, a mother of seven, has relied on farming maize and beans to support her family for years. But each year
she would lose 30% of her harvest as pests infested her grain, taking their share of the food before it reached the dinner
table.
“From nowhere rats, chickens and insects would come and eat it,” said Nakaziba, who lives in Nambale village, about 85
miles east of the capital, Kampala.
Like many farmers, Nakaziba, 47, lacked proper drying facilities for the grain and so would dry it on the ground before
storage, unaware that this could lead to deadly aflatoxin contamination.
Her inability to safely store her harvest also forced her to sell her grain early, which meant Nakaziba received a very low
price from the local market.
“It affected our income, food security and also the education of our children,” she says.
Then in 2014 Nakaziba’s life changed. She received training in post-harvest handling from the UN’s World Food
Programme (WFP), which launched an operation designed to reduce post-harvest food losses for 16,600 low-income
farmers in Uganda by providing them with simple storage facilities, such as silos, granaries and grain storage bags. In a
workshop Nakaziba learned how to improve her farm management practices and purchase new technology storage and
handling equipment.
Today a huge airtight silo, allowing Nakaziba to safely store more than 500kg of grain for as long as she desires, for family
consumption or sale, sits in a corner of her modest home.
“If the market price is favourable, the farmer can choose to sell, but they are now no longer forced to sell immediately
following harvest to avoid losses,” explains WFP’s Uganda programme officer, Richard Sewava.
Nakaziba, who purchased the silo and a plastic tarpaulin from the WFP on a cost-sharing basis, is happy. “Now the rats
cannot get to my grain, and by selling later I am able to get 900 shillings [16p] per kilogram instead of 350,” she says. “With
the extra money I’m getting I can buy things for my children and my garden.”
The programme has been hugely successful in Uganda, where about 95% of food losses occur in the post-harvest,
production, and distribution stages and only 5% is wasted by consumers. Ninety-eight per cent of farmers who participated
in the programme said it helped them reduce crop losses to below 2% of their harvest, and the majority of participants
doubled their average selling price in each major crop. The ability to lock the storage silos proved particularly helpful for
female farmers, who are more vulnerable to their crops being stolen, with more than 98% reporting a significant increase in
household food security.
The project is being expanded this year to reach more than 42,000 low-income farming families in Uganda.
“Given the wonderful success we are witnessing in Uganda, there is a high level of interest now being shown by
neighbouring countries Rwanda, South Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania for similar implementation support,”says the WFP
project leader Simon Costa.
By Amy Fallon in Kampala
China
Zhang Qinyu was born and raised in Shaanxi province, China’s biggest fruit-producing region. His hometown, Xianyang, is
the country’s apple capital. Growing up in Shaanxi, Zhang, 23, witnessed not just an abundance of fruit and vegetables but
also the scandalous waste of produce that was allowed to rot before it could be sold because of poor storage facilities.
Food waste is a severe problem in China. Last year Xinhua, China’s official news agency, reported that $32bn worth of
food - enough to feed 200 million people - was lost each year.
Vegetable and fruit wastage in China, Japan and South Korea has been identified by the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) as a key area to be tackled. It estimates that almost 40% of all fruit and
vegetables produced in these countries are wasted. Between them, China, Japan and South Korea produce more than
50% of the world’s vegetables and so this wastage equals a very large quantity of food.
After graduating last year Zhang looked to the internet for a fix, and set up Shaanxi Yihong Agricultural Technology
Company, an online firm that helps connect rural farmers with hungry consumers in urban China.
“I realised e-commerce could provide a solution to their problem. E-commerce links the farmers to customers, bypassing
wholesale buyers, making it easier for farmers to sell their fruit and vegetables so less goes to waste,” he says. Through
Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, Zhang has helped farmers shift produce including spring onions, pears, apples, dates
and kiwis.
Part of the country’s problem is that many farmers lack the technology to adequately store their produce, he says. “Many
are using cellars rather than proper cold storage units.” Another major issue is that small-scale farmers - hoping for the
highest possible price - often wait too long before offloading their crops.
Earlier this year Zhang used the internet to help farmers in Qian county, Shaanxi, find buyers for 3,000 tonnes of pears that
would otherwise have spoiled. “When the farmers harvested the pears last October, they didn’t know the latest market price
and thought the price offered to them was too low,” says Zhang. Rather than selling, they put the pears into cellars, hoping
that the price would rise during the Chinese new year, but in fact nearly lost everything.
He placed an advert on Weibo reading: “I have checked the pears myself and they are big, juicy and sweet.” It worked. The
fruit found buyers before it rotted.
“If we had not stepped in, those pears would have gone bad and the farmers’ hard work would have been wasted,” says
Zhang.
By Tom Phillips in Beijing; additional reporting by Luna Lin.
From: www.PositiveNewsUs.Org
Uganda
Hasifa Nakaziba, a mother of seven, has relied on farming maize and beans to support her family for years. But each year
she would lose 30% of her harvest as pests infested her grain, taking their share of the food before it reached the dinner
table.
“From nowhere rats, chickens and insects would come and eat it,” said Nakaziba, who lives in Nambale village, about 85
miles east of the capital, Kampala.
Like many farmers, Nakaziba, 47, lacked proper drying facilities for the grain and so would dry it on the ground before
storage, unaware that this could lead to deadly aflatoxin contamination.
Her inability to safely store her harvest also forced her to sell her grain early, which meant Nakaziba received a very low
price from the local market.
“It affected our income, food security and also the education of our children,” she says.
Then in 2014 Nakaziba’s life changed. She received training in post-harvest handling from the UN’s World Food
Programme (WFP), which launched an operation designed to reduce post-harvest food losses for 16,600 low-income
farmers in Uganda by providing them with simple storage facilities, such as silos, granaries and grain storage bags. In a
workshop Nakaziba learned how to improve her farm management practices and purchase new technology storage and
handling equipment.
Today a huge airtight silo, allowing Nakaziba to safely store more than 500kg of grain for as long as she desires, for family
consumption or sale, sits in a corner of her modest home.
“If the market price is favourable, the farmer can choose to sell, but they are now no longer forced to sell immediately
following harvest to avoid losses,” explains WFP’s Uganda programme officer, Richard Sewava.
Nakaziba, who purchased the silo and a plastic tarpaulin from the WFP on a cost-sharing basis, is happy. “Now the rats
cannot get to my grain, and by selling later I am able to get 900 shillings [16p] per kilogram instead of 350,” she says. “With
the extra money I’m getting I can buy things for my children and my garden.”
The programme has been hugely successful in Uganda, where about 95% of food losses occur in the post-harvest,
production, and distribution stages and only 5% is wasted by consumers. Ninety-eight per cent of farmers who participated
in the programme said it helped them reduce crop losses to below 2% of their harvest, and the majority of participants
doubled their average selling price in each major crop. The ability to lock the storage silos proved particularly helpful for
female farmers, who are more vulnerable to their crops being stolen, with more than 98% reporting a significant increase in
household food security.
The project is being expanded this year to reach more than 42,000 low-income farming families in Uganda.
“Given the wonderful success we are witnessing in Uganda, there is a high level of interest now being shown by
neighbouring countries Rwanda, South Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania for similar implementation support,”says the WFP
project leader Simon Costa.
By Amy Fallon in Kampala
China
Zhang Qinyu was born and raised in Shaanxi province, China’s biggest fruit-producing region. His hometown, Xianyang, is
the country’s apple capital. Growing up in Shaanxi, Zhang, 23, witnessed not just an abundance of fruit and vegetables but
also the scandalous waste of produce that was allowed to rot before it could be sold because of poor storage facilities.
Food waste is a severe problem in China. Last year Xinhua, China’s official news agency, reported that $32bn worth of
food - enough to feed 200 million people - was lost each year.
Vegetable and fruit wastage in China, Japan and South Korea has been identified by the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) as a key area to be tackled. It estimates that almost 40% of all fruit and
vegetables produced in these countries are wasted. Between them, China, Japan and South Korea produce more than
50% of the world’s vegetables and so this wastage equals a very large quantity of food.
After graduating last year Zhang looked to the internet for a fix, and set up Shaanxi Yihong Agricultural Technology
Company, an online firm that helps connect rural farmers with hungry consumers in urban China.
“I realised e-commerce could provide a solution to their problem. E-commerce links the farmers to customers, bypassing
wholesale buyers, making it easier for farmers to sell their fruit and vegetables so less goes to waste,” he says. Through
Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, Zhang has helped farmers shift produce including spring onions, pears, apples, dates
and kiwis.
Part of the country’s problem is that many farmers lack the technology to adequately store their produce, he says. “Many
are using cellars rather than proper cold storage units.” Another major issue is that small-scale farmers - hoping for the
highest possible price - often wait too long before offloading their crops.
Earlier this year Zhang used the internet to help farmers in Qian county, Shaanxi, find buyers for 3,000 tonnes of pears that
would otherwise have spoiled. “When the farmers harvested the pears last October, they didn’t know the latest market price
and thought the price offered to them was too low,” says Zhang. Rather than selling, they put the pears into cellars, hoping
that the price would rise during the Chinese new year, but in fact nearly lost everything.
He placed an advert on Weibo reading: “I have checked the pears myself and they are big, juicy and sweet.” It worked. The
fruit found buyers before it rotted.
“If we had not stepped in, those pears would have gone bad and the farmers’ hard work would have been wasted,” says
Zhang.
By Tom Phillips in Beijing; additional reporting by Luna Lin.
From: www.PositiveNewsUs.Org
Uganda
Hasifa Nakaziba, a mother of seven, has relied on farming maize and beans to support her family for years. But each year
she would lose 30% of her harvest as pests infested her grain, taking their share of the food before it reached the dinner
table.
“From nowhere rats, chickens and insects would come and eat it,” said Nakaziba, who lives in Nambale village, about 85
miles east of the capital, Kampala.
Like many farmers, Nakaziba, 47, lacked proper drying facilities for the grain and so would dry it on the ground before
storage, unaware that this could lead to deadly aflatoxin contamination.
Her inability to safely store her harvest also forced her to sell her grain early, which meant Nakaziba received a very low
price from the local market.
“It affected our income, food security and also the education of our children,” she says.
Then in 2014 Nakaziba’s life changed. She received training in post-harvest handling from the UN’s World Food
Programme (WFP), which launched an operation designed to reduce post-harvest food losses for 16,600 low-income
farmers in Uganda by providing them with simple storage facilities, such as silos, granaries and grain storage bags. In a
workshop Nakaziba learned how to improve her farm management practices and purchase new technology storage and
handling equipment.
Today a huge airtight silo, allowing Nakaziba to safely store more than 500kg of grain for as long as she desires, for family
consumption or sale, sits in a corner of her modest home.
“If the market price is favourable, the farmer can choose to sell, but they are now no longer forced to sell immediately
following harvest to avoid losses,” explains WFP’s Uganda programme officer, Richard Sewava.
Nakaziba, who purchased the silo and a plastic tarpaulin from the WFP on a cost-sharing basis, is happy. “Now the rats
cannot get to my grain, and by selling later I am able to get 900 shillings [16p] per kilogram instead of 350,” she says. “With
the extra money I’m getting I can buy things for my children and my garden.”
The programme has been hugely successful in Uganda, where about 95% of food losses occur in the post-harvest,
production, and distribution stages and only 5% is wasted by consumers. Ninety-eight per cent of farmers who participated
in the programme said it helped them reduce crop losses to below 2% of their harvest, and the majority of participants
doubled their average selling price in each major crop. The ability to lock the storage silos proved particularly helpful for
female farmers, who are more vulnerable to their crops being stolen, with more than 98% reporting a significant increase in
household food security.
The project is being expanded this year to reach more than 42,000 low-income farming families in Uganda.
“Given the wonderful success we are witnessing in Uganda, there is a high level of interest now being shown by
neighbouring countries Rwanda, South Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania for similar implementation support,”says the WFP
project leader Simon Costa.
By Amy Fallon in Kampala
China
Zhang Qinyu was born and raised in Shaanxi province, China’s biggest fruit-producing region. His hometown, Xianyang, is
the country’s apple capital. Growing up in Shaanxi, Zhang, 23, witnessed not just an abundance of fruit and vegetables but
also the scandalous waste of produce that was allowed to rot before it could be sold because of poor storage facilities.
Food waste is a severe problem in China. Last year Xinhua, China’s official news agency, reported that $32bn worth of
food - enough to feed 200 million people - was lost each year.
Vegetable and fruit wastage in China, Japan and South Korea has been identified by the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) as a key area to be tackled. It estimates that almost 40% of all fruit and
vegetables produced in these countries are wasted. Between them, China, Japan and South Korea produce more than
50% of the world’s vegetables and so this wastage equals a very large quantity of food.
After graduating last year Zhang looked to the internet for a fix, and set up Shaanxi Yihong Agricultural Technology
Company, an online firm that helps connect rural farmers with hungry consumers in urban China.
“I realised e-commerce could provide a solution to their problem. E-commerce links the farmers to customers, bypassing
wholesale buyers, making it easier for farmers to sell their fruit and vegetables so less goes to waste,” he says. Through
Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, Zhang has helped farmers shift produce including spring onions, pears, apples, dates
and kiwis.
Part of the country’s problem is that many farmers lack the technology to adequately store their produce, he says. “Many
are using cellars rather than proper cold storage units.” Another major issue is that small-scale farmers - hoping for the
highest possible price - often wait too long before offloading their crops.
Earlier this year Zhang used the internet to help farmers in Qian county, Shaanxi, find buyers for 3,000 tonnes of pears that
would otherwise have spoiled. “When the farmers harvested the pears last October, they didn’t know the latest market price
and thought the price offered to them was too low,” says Zhang. Rather than selling, they put the pears into cellars, hoping
that the price would rise during the Chinese new year, but in fact nearly lost everything.
He placed an advert on Weibo reading: “I have checked the pears myself and they are big, juicy and sweet.” It worked. The
fruit found buyers before it rotted.
“If we had not stepped in, those pears would have gone bad and the farmers’ hard work would have been wasted,” says
Zhang.
By Tom Phillips in Beijing; additional reporting by Luna Lin.
From: www.PositiveNewsUs.Org
Uganda
Hasifa Nakaziba, a mother of seven, has relied on farming maize and beans to support her family for years. But each year
she would lose 30% of her harvest as pests infested her grain, taking their share of the food before it reached the dinner
table.
“From nowhere rats, chickens and insects would come and eat it,” said Nakaziba, who lives in Nambale village, about 85
miles east of the capital, Kampala.
Like many farmers, Nakaziba, 47, lacked proper drying facilities for the grain and so would dry it on the ground before
storage, unaware that this could lead to deadly aflatoxin contamination.
Her inability to safely store her harvest also forced her to sell her grain early, which meant Nakaziba received a very low
price from the local market.
“It affected our income, food security and also the education of our children,” she says.
Then in 2014 Nakaziba’s life changed. She received training in post-harvest handling from the UN’s World Food
Programme (WFP), which launched an operation designed to reduce post-harvest food losses for 16,600 low-income
farmers in Uganda by providing them with simple storage facilities, such as silos, granaries and grain storage bags. In a
workshop Nakaziba learned how to improve her farm management practices and purchase new technology storage and
handling equipment.
Today a huge airtight silo, allowing Nakaziba to safely store more than 500kg of grain for as long as she desires, for family
consumption or sale, sits in a corner of her modest home.
“If the market price is favourable, the farmer can choose to sell, but they are now no longer forced to sell immediately
following harvest to avoid losses,” explains WFP’s Uganda programme officer, Richard Sewava.
Nakaziba, who purchased the silo and a plastic tarpaulin from the WFP on a cost-sharing basis, is happy. “Now the rats
cannot get to my grain, and by selling later I am able to get 900 shillings [16p] per kilogram instead of 350,” she says. “With
the extra money I’m getting I can buy things for my children and my garden.”
The programme has been hugely successful in Uganda, where about 95% of food losses occur in the post-harvest,
production, and distribution stages and only 5% is wasted by consumers. Ninety-eight per cent of farmers who participated
in the programme said it helped them reduce crop losses to below 2% of their harvest, and the majority of participants
doubled their average selling price in each major crop. The ability to lock the storage silos proved particularly helpful for
female farmers, who are more vulnerable to their crops being stolen, with more than 98% reporting a significant increase in
household food security.
The project is being expanded this year to reach more than 42,000 low-income farming families in Uganda.
“Given the wonderful success we are witnessing in Uganda, there is a high level of interest now being shown by
neighbouring countries Rwanda, South Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania for similar implementation support,”says the WFP
project leader Simon Costa.
By Amy Fallon in Kampala
China
Zhang Qinyu was born and raised in Shaanxi province, China’s biggest fruit-producing region. His hometown, Xianyang, is
the country’s apple capital. Growing up in Shaanxi, Zhang, 23, witnessed not just an abundance of fruit and vegetables but
also the scandalous waste of produce that was allowed to rot before it could be sold because of poor storage facilities.
Food waste is a severe problem in China. Last year Xinhua, China’s official news agency, reported that $32bn worth of
food - enough to feed 200 million people - was lost each year.
Vegetable and fruit wastage in China, Japan and South Korea has been identified by the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) as a key area to be tackled. It estimates that almost 40% of all fruit and
vegetables produced in these countries are wasted. Between them, China, Japan and South Korea produce more than
50% of the world’s vegetables and so this wastage equals a very large quantity of food.
After graduating last year Zhang looked to the internet for a fix, and set up Shaanxi Yihong Agricultural Technology
Company, an online firm that helps connect rural farmers with hungry consumers in urban China.
“I realised e-commerce could provide a solution to their problem. E-commerce links the farmers to customers, bypassing
wholesale buyers, making it easier for farmers to sell their fruit and vegetables so less goes to waste,” he says. Through
Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, Zhang has helped farmers shift produce including spring onions, pears, apples, dates
and kiwis.
Part of the country’s problem is that many farmers lack the technology to adequately store their produce, he says. “Many
are using cellars rather than proper cold storage units.” Another major issue is that small-scale farmers - hoping for the
highest possible price - often wait too long before offloading their crops.
Earlier this year Zhang used the internet to help farmers in Qian county, Shaanxi, find buyers for 3,000 tonnes of pears that
would otherwise have spoiled. “When the farmers harvested the pears last October, they didn’t know the latest market price
and thought the price offered to them was too low,” says Zhang. Rather than selling, they put the pears into cellars, hoping
that the price would rise during the Chinese new year, but in fact nearly lost everything.
He placed an advert on Weibo reading: “I have checked the pears myself and they are big, juicy and sweet.” It worked. The
fruit found buyers before it rotted.
“If we had not stepped in, those pears would have gone bad and the farmers’ hard work would have been wasted,” says
Zhang.
By Tom Phillips in Beijing; additional reporting by Luna Lin.
From: www.PositiveNewsUs.Org
Fighting food waste: stories from - Uganda & China
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