Photo: Dana Hazeen/IRIN

The UNRWA headquarters in Amman. Officials said at least 70,000 students would take advantage of the Jordanian government-funded programme

AMMAN, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - The Jordanian authorities will start distributing food rations to Palestinian refugee children at schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on 12 October. This is part of a programme to help cushion pupils from soaring food prices.

UNRWA spokesman Matter Saqer in Amman told IRIN the move would have a positive impact on children’s educational achievement in poverty-stricken areas.

Each school will get food twice a week - enough for all the children. No students will be allowed to take any of the food home after school.

The measure was approved by Jordan’s King Abdullah in August to ensure equal treatment of Palestinian children with their Jordanian counterparts in government-run schools.

Most of the schoolchildren, in 13 refugee camps, whose parents and grandparents arrived after the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel, are naturalised Jordanian citizens. However, they remain registered as refugees and many receive aid from UNRWA.

Officials at UNRWA said at least 70,000 students would take advantage of the Jordanian government-funded programme.

Soaring world food prices have hit Jordan - a country not over-endowed with water or natural resources - hard. Poverty is rife and unemployment is high.

Mid-morning snack

The school nutrition programme, which has been running in Jordanian state schools since late 1999, provides each child with a mid-morning snack consisting of a 200ml carton of UHT milk; 70 grams of high protein biscuits fortified with vitamins A, D and iron; and a piece of fruit every day.

The snack provides children with the requisite daily nutritional intake and is often the only meal many of these impoverished children have during the day.

Officials from UNRWA said the move would help students in the camps at a time when the country is reeling under unprecedented increases in the cost of living.

The national aid programme was established after nationwide surveys revealed serious health deficiencies - particularly vitamins A and D, and iron - among schoolchildren.

A June 2006 position paper by the European Emergency Food Security Group questioned the effectiveness and sustainability of school feeding programmes.

USAID assists vegetable growers of Globino in joining forces to create cooperative.

Ukraine’s growing number of private farmers and small-plot holders face numerous difficulties in growing and selling quality produce. Lacking capital, farming knowledge, and small business skills, these individuals need help to capitalize on the promise of privatization.

USAID’s Farmer to Farmer program, administered by CNFA, helped introduce farmers in three Ukraine villages to the principles of cooperatives - organized groups that collect membership fees, pool resources, and collaborate on accessing the market as a unified force instead of as individuals. Cooperative members are involved in the process of creating as well as maintaining operations. For example, a Farmer to Farmer volunteer discussed transportation problems with the cooperative members and provided a context for the cucumber growers to work together to develop a solution.

Farmer to Farmer volunteers trained the cucumber growers on business planning and marketing, cooperative development including establishing a board of directors and building membership, and the democratic process of running a cooperative through voting and decision making. All three villages have elected steering committees, set action plans, and developed simple business plans for their fledgling cooperatives. Collaboration has enabled individual farmers to benefit from their partner members through increased production and sales. The farmers, many of whom were previously unemployed, have increased annual family incomes an average of $226.

USAID-funded program increases milk production by over 10% for Russian farm.

The USAID’s Farmer to Farmer program, administered by Land O’ Lakes International, has helped change the approach of the entire milking operation on Sergei Podzorov’s farm in Siberia. A Farmer to Farmer volunteer from the United States visited the farm to provide consultation on feeding practices, introduce improvements to the forage production process.

The volunteer also suggested ways to supplement the feeding rations, which proved to be the most cost-effective innovation increasing production by over 10%. The volunteer advised Podzorov to use his funds to feed the cows properly instead of heating the barns throughout the winter. This change helped reduce illness and death of the calves. The farm managers were trained on agricultural techniques including the removal of low-producing cows, and will pursue a genetic breeding program in the long term to improve overall milk production. Other improvements included the farm’s facilities - the barn and some pens were remodeled in favor of an improved upkeep system.

According to Sergei Podzorov, the overall effect of USAID’s help is that the implementation of the Farmer to Farmer program has set the farm well on its way to continuous improvements for the future.

Apple producers throughout Moldova have a long-standing tradition of quality when it comes to growing delicious fruit. But they have struggled for years with getting their product to market when the demand is highest and prices are the best.

The lack of adequate storage facilities has prevented farmers from solving their marketing problem. Now, with support from USAID, a Moldovan company has built a state-of-the-art Controlled Atmosphere Storage Facility — the first of this kind in the region. Here farmers can store their apples for as long as they need before bringing them to market without worrying about loss of flavor or freshness. Selling their fruit out of season allows farmers to receive up to four times as much for their crop, and consumers can purchase locally grown fruit at better prices than they were paying for imported varieties.

Improved farming techniques double crop and milk yields.

Challenge
Dairy cows in Kosovo have long produced low yields of milk. To increase their production, dairy farmers needed to start growing more feed, introducing better corn and alfalfa hybrids, and implementing new growing techniques – all while keeping costs low. But without first-hand experience in these techniques, many dairy farmers were skeptical about the benefits of this approach.

Initiative
USAID launched an on-farm teaching project to demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques. Working with commercial dairy farmers, USAID created on-farm demonstration plots, where farmers applied new growing techniques for feed. They applied proper fertilization, grew better corn and alfalfa hybrids for animal feed, and cut the crops at their peak, when nutrient values are highest. The program also brought dairy farmers to the U.S. for a training program in management techniques to improve milk quality. Finally, the program facilitated linkages between dairy farmers and dairy processors. Based on results gathered during crop feed trials, USAID recommended new hybrids with high production potential and new fertilizer formulations most appropriate for the local environment.

Results
The farmers were impressed with the results. Today, 28 percent of planted fields in Kosovo are growing the new hybrids. Their average yield is 6.2 tons/hectare and 46 tons/hectare of corn and silage compared with non-hybrid yields of 3.8 and 16. Milk production is up by two liters per cow, per day on one demonstration farm, Rudina, where cows are gaining one pound of weight per day. Rudina’s owner, Aruq Krasniqi, calculates that the new techniques are increasing the farm’s income by about one euro per cow, per day. With over 100 milking cows, the farm’s revenue has jumped by $3,500 per month. Rudina produces 600,000 liters of milk annually. A number of other farms have now applied the new techniques and adopted USAID’s recommendations. They have cut feed expenses in half, and are doubling and tripling the volume of milk produced.