THE SITUATION
In developing countries, agriculture continues to be the main source of employment, livelihood and income for between 50 - 90% of the population. Of this percentage, small farmers make the up the majority, which accounts for approximately 70 – 95% of the farming population. Over the past two decades, many farmers have experimented with export crops and while a small percentage experienced initial success; most encountered disastrous failures. Unfortunately, the industrialization and export orientation of agriculture has not benefited them. In the globalized market, small sized farms have been marginalized and strict policies mean the continuation of the vicious cycle of poverty for sectors of society, highly uneven development leading to the inability of many developing countries to attain satisfactory levels of overall development. Analysts argue that developing countries cannot achieve a satisfactory level of development because their small farmers have been sidelined. The sort of inequity and poverty these rural farmers face actually blocks their true development. Not to mention, the majority of the rural populations are so poor that they have little purchasing power which means they do not constitute an important market for domestic industry. The domestic markets are too small to stimulate much economic activity and so the consequence is that the level of demand in the economy is too narrow to sustain broad based, effective development. In short, poverty becomes a vicious circle that is itself an obstacle to development.
The volunteer programs we offer provide you with an opportunity to work with developing gardens around nursery schools and other schools to provide nutritional snacks to the children as well as demonstrate and teach sustainable agriculture techniques and erosion control. Developing these gardens can act as a great community demonstration as well as a source of nutrients. The hope is that these gardens can be maintained and developed over the coming years, with ideas from both the community and visitors. Also, we hope that these gardens can serve as a great source of food for the children, and also an incredible way to demonstrate the use of sustainable home vegetable gardens. Other volunteer programs we offer will help to feed, educate and support orphans, vulnerable children and families for their entire lifetimes.