Month: February 2015

The Ebola Epidemic and the Agricultural CrisisCharlotte Broyd Communications Officer Partnership for Child Development Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology

One of the numerous impacts of the Ebola Crisis in West Africa is the damage that it has caused to already fragile agricultural economies. Restrictions on public gatherings and the closure of international borders have forced numerous agricultural markets to shut up shop. The impact that this has had on smallholder farmer livelihoods has been catastrophic.

However in light of the welcome news that the Ebola epidemic is slowing down, the Partnership for Child Development’s Samrat Singh looks at what innovative steps governments and their development partners can take to enable these shattered agricultural markets to bounce back from the Ebola crisis. Samrat’s article, written in collaboration with long time Defra adviser Helen Roberts,  looks at how government-led programmes such as Home Grown School Feeding can provide stable markets for local smallholder farmers which can in turn support struggling agricultural economies.

Read the full article

 

Charlotte Broyd
Communications Officer
Partnership for Child Development
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology