During January the Foodgrains Bank committed $1.9 million to six projects in four countries. The projects are briefly summarized below:

Bangladesh - $337,000 – World Relief Canada is supporting Koinonia with the third year of a five-year program in Kandi & Suagram Unions in Gopalgonj District. The local inhabitants suffer acute food insecurity. This project is improving the local agricultural environment by draining stagnant water that has been present for many years, and improving management of field and horticultural crops, fish culture, poultry and livestock. Special attention is being given to female empowerment. Regular maintenance of the canals and roads is being improved through formation of local canal management committees. The project is using 450 tonnes of rice for the food-for-work component of the project this year benefiting 1,450 families. Other food security activities will benefit an additional 1,590 families.

Ethiopia - $33,000 – Mennonite Central Committee Canada is supporting Migbaresenay Children and Family Support Organization with the fourth year of a four-year food security project in the Amhara Region in Ethiopia designed to rehabilitate 1,135 hectares of land and improve the food security of 3,044 families. The watershed is severely degraded, with gully erosion affecting farmland. The main project activities include providing training in gulley rehabilitation and environmental management; controlling land degradation through applying physical and biological soil conservation measures; and raising per capita income of the target communities by rehabilitating their land and engaging them in farm income generating activities.

Ethiopia - $290,000 – Canadian Lutheran World Relief is supporting the fourth year of a four-year Support for Sustainable Development (SSD) project in the Frenchfage area in the Afar region. Recurrent drought in the area has resulted in the degradation of the environment because of overgrazing and other hazards, and this in turn has resulted in loss of livestock, which is a major asset and means of livelihood.

Diversifying the livelihood of the people has become vital. SSD had constructed an irrigation scheme upstream on this river and observed that there was excess water for seven to eight months from June to December. If another irrigation scheme was constructed on the same river, Frenchfage people could get water and produce crops twice a year. The main activities of the project include constructing irrigation infrastructure, providing technical support in the areas of irrigation agronomy and natural resource management, and building the capacity of the community. The project is developing 200 hectares of land that will benefit 600 households. 160 tonnes of wheat will be distributed in the food-for-work component this year.

Ethiopia - $349,000 – Canadian Lutheran World Relief is supporting the third year of a three-year Support for Sustainable Development (SSD) food security project in the Mengela area of the Afar region. The Mengela irrigation-based development project is designed to address the immediate food needs through food-for-work and to contribute to long term food self sufficiency in the target communities. The core output of the project is an irrigation scheme that is being constructed on Awadi River. In addition, agricultural extension, community capacity building and environmental conservation activities are being implemented. 600 households will benefit from the food security initiatives and 5,950 people will benefit from the food-for-work activities this year.

Iraq - $719,000 – Mennonite Central Committee Canada is supporting Première Urgence with a twelve month project to improve nutrition in four villages in the Baghdad governorate. This second “my village, my home” project will facilitate rural communities around Baghdad to achieve healthy nutrition through community mobilization and reactivation of agricultural production. The objectives of the project are to increase families’ knowledge of nutrition and adoption of good practices, increase their diet diversity, and improve their agricultural income. 8,030 individuals (962 families) are participating in this project.

Nepal - $138,000 – Nazarene Compassionate Ministries Nepal is supporting the first year of a two-year project in ten communities in eastern Nepal. This project will provide vegetable seeds for 1,200 families in the ten village communities, most of which are connected with child development centres. There will be roughly 120 families participating in each of the targeted communities. The project will promote diet diversity and increased food consumption through vegetable production. The beneficiaries will be organized into 48 training groups and will receive training related to home gardens, food, health, nutrition, and social issues.