Author name: Danielle Nierenberg

Danielle Nierenberg, an expert on livestock and sustainability, currently serves as Project Director of Nourishing the Planet for the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank. Her knowledge of factory farming and its global spread and sustainable agriculture has been cited widely in The New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, and other publications. Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic and volunteers at farmers markets, the Earth Sangha (an urban reforestation organization), and Citizen Effect (an NGO focused on sustainable development projects all over the world). She has spent the last year traveling to more than 25 countries across sub-Saharan Africa looking at environmentally sustainable ways of alleviating hunger and poverty. She holds an M.S. in Agriculture, Food, and Environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in Environmental Policy from Monmouth College.

Fishing for Sustainable Practices to Conserve Fisheries

Eat Local, Food Politics + Justice / By

U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization an estimated 53 percent of fisheries are considered fully exploited—harvested to their maximum sustainable levels—with no room for expansion in production. Population growth and a higher demand for dietary protein are putting increasing pressure on depleted stocks and threatened ecosystems.

Around the world, fisheries co-managed by local authorities and fishers themselves are emerging as a promising solution to replenishing depleting fish stocks.

Getting “More Crop Per Drop” to Strengthen Global Food Security

Food Industry / By

The Green Revolution of the 1960s led to a near tripling of global grain production and a doubling of the world’s irrigated area. It also, however, demanded vast quantities of water. Previous agricultural investments have focused narrowly on increasing crop yields, while there has been relatively little research and investment in ways to make better use of scarce water resources. Affordable innovations that boost agricultural development and meet the increasing demand on already-scarce water resources while also mitigating the impacts of climate change, are more important than ever.

Providing the Skills—and the Confidence—Needed to Improve Livelihoods

Breakfast, Eat Local, Food Industry, Food Politics + Justice, Grow Your Own Food, Healthy Kids / By

For most women living in rural and remote parts of India, the day begins as early as 3:00am. The flour for the day’s meals needs grinding, livestock need to be fed, breakfast needs to be cooked, and water needs to be carried from wells, rivers, and streams. And that’s all before the children—usually just the boys— head off to school for the day.

Putting Classroom Theory into Practice

Food Industry / By

As part of the Minnesota University’s Institute on the Environment, Acara has developed a classroom curriculum for universities in the U.S. and in India that challenges students to think creatively about how to use private businesses to solve pressing global issues such as hunger and poverty. But instead of the semester culminating in an exam or a paper, Acara provides students the necessary tools to turn their best class work into reality.

Turning an Invasive Species into a Livelihood

Eat Local, Food Industry, Food Politics + Justice / By

Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. In Kenya, for the over 5,000 people living in rural communities on or near its shore, Lake Victoria—the largest body of freshwater in Africa—is a life line. It is the main source of water for bathing, drinking, and cooking in the area and its fish populations provide …

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Improving the Harvest, From the Soil to the Market

Eat Local, Food Industry, Food Politics + Justice, Food Safety / By

Farmers in the Uluguru Mountains in Tanzania are fighting a losing battle against increasingly degraded land. Repeated plantings are quickly depleting the nutrients in the soil, leaving it nearly barren and vulnerable to erosion. Meanwhile, downstream, the water is dark with sediment, unfit for drinking and expensive to treat. “Downstream, people are complaining about the quality of water,” says Lopa Dosteus, program manager for CARE International’s Equitable Payment for Watershed Management (EPWM) program. “And upstream, the farmers are struggling to grow enough food while their soil washes away.”

Banking on the Harvest

Food Industry, Food Politics + Justice, Food Safety, Grow Your Own Food / By

Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. In the Maradi area in south central Niger, where 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, the months before the harvest are called “the hunger season.” From mid-July to mid-September, food supplies are at their lowest and most families only eat one meal a …

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