FOOD SECURITY or WHAT???

Communities in Uganda have built these Granneries as a food security intervention based on their traditional knowledge.



I wonder What Materials are Used to build these huge food granneries?



This practice basically thrives on the environment of the community. They use Reeds, Cowdung, dry grass and mud,to plaster the walls.



Is it important?

• Talking to experts in livelihood this culture promoted a number of economic initiatives in African Communities that you cant find now.
  
  They were are store for food, This would ensure the scurity of the family irespective of the size.


• It was relevant especially in times of drought


• The women who have been traditionally marginalised in most communities were safe and less dependant on the daily income of the men to sustain their children.


• These Baskets have also been a store for indegnous seeds


• Commmunity Pyschology experts say that this culture of saving food in the granneries prepaired all families to plan for their families, in a way this culture promoted planning for families and prepaired communities for possible flactuations in harvests.


• Child protection experts would certainly say that access to food is imperative in the development process of a child.

Granneries in a Modern perspective

Development theriorists have argued that this practice is at odds with growing consumerism Culture . Some of the remotest communities with vast fertile chunks of land have amassed small retail shops that sale food to the same geographically located communities at low prices. This trend also presposes granneries to be a backward method of food storage.
Environmental Implication
This practice poses a threat to the environment however to a minimal extent.
The other implication is that communities after all these years of civilisation have not developed or advanced this food storage technique to another form. This therefore encourages dependency on the Environment for sustainability of communities.

Security for Indegenous Seeds

The current world Challenge of extinction of indegenous seeds is largely due to the brakedown of this tradition in several communitie of the world. The growth of multi nationals such as mosantos, etc. and the increasing Droughts, Disasters and the ever increasing populations in the world is threatening the seed security.
My thoughts on this would be that Governments and Development partners should do more research about this practice. The Micro level activities of each community certainily affect the Macro Economy of the country.
A detailed discussion on restoration of Traditional Food security mechanism and the effect it has on the quality of the people of a given community would be an interesting one.



HOW TO Communicate this Information????

The other major challenge that development workers and governments are facing is how to communicate some of these Development Concerns.
In a discussion with some of my partners: They asked me to link "granneries" to Development concerns such as Child protection , economic Development.


Complex information to be digestable and well packaged for the mental faculties of several Developing communitie might require alot of thought, resources and creativity that is un limitted.
This calls for creative methods and understanding the micro level habits of each commuinity to actually benefit them or even attempt to engage them in dialogue.

Each Development Concern poses a new challenge that requires creative methods of capturing the attention and the minds of the various communities.


Written by Edgar Walter Byaruhanga Exec Director Development Initiatives Africa(DIA)