Page 29 - PC Fall 2023

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FALL 2023
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PRESBYTERIAN WORLD SERVICE & DEVELOPMENT
PRESBYTERIAN
29
Severe weather events caused by the climate emergency, like Cyclone Freddy in Malawi, devastates homes and livelihoods.
By Guy Smagghe, PWS&D Director
God has provided us with a beau- tiful and bountiful planet and we all have been called to care for it, just like we care for our homes, our gardens, our lawns and our loved ones. Several systems need to be in place for human life to be possible on Earth: the water cy- cle, clean air and livable tempera- tures, for example.
These systems are interlinked and defy all human-made borders. We have seen how forest fires in Canada have sent smoke to Wash- ington, D.C., New York City and as far as Europe. We see how plas- tics originating from various parts of the world end up forming huge islands of garbage in the oceans.
When looking at the human tragedy linked to the climate emergency, we see how water cycles have been disturbed by the excessive use of fossil fuels and the over production of green- house gases. As a result, parts of our planet are experiencing the highest temperatures on record, with drastic effects on human populations. Droughts are more persistent, rains are less predict- able and often more torrential when they finally occur.
PWS&D recently issued a fund- ing appeal for the East Africa Hunger Crisis. East Africa, also known as the “Horn of Africa,” has been experiencing its longest drought in recorded history. Five
The Human
Tragedy of
the Climate
Emergency
consecutive rainy seasons failed to materialize. Populations in So- malia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya saw their crops dry out, their cat- tle die of hunger and thirst, and have had to migrate to refugee camps or to already overpopulat- ed urban centres, hoping to find food to stay alive.
The World Weather Attribution Initiative—an organization made up of international scientists—as- serts that this devastating drought would not have happened without human-caused climate change.
The World Food Programme states that after three years of drought, over 23 million people in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia are facing severe hunger. Long awaited rains finally came, but resulted in flash floods that inun- dated homes, washed away sur- viving livestock, closed schools and health facilities, and created conditions where water-borne diseases proliferated.
This has also been happening in other regions. In Malawi, in the month of March, Cyclone Freddy destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of crops, leaving half a million people displaced. It was the longest-lasting tropical cy- clone ever recorded in the south- ern hemisphere.
Despite contributing very little to the emissions that cause climate change, Malawi and countries in the Horn of Africa bear many of the heaviest costs of these climate
events. While global leaders fail to take action to turn the climate emergency around, we are left with an ever-greater responsibil- ity to provide humanitarian assis- tance to those in need, and to help them build resilience to face future extreme weather events.
We are leading a food as- sistance project in Malawi in response to Cyclone Freddy; and we are supporting food as- sistance and nutrition projects in Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya through collaborations at Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
PWS&D is committed to in- creasing its climate action pro- gramming, given the impact of climate change on populations in the world’s poorest countries. As such, we are pooling resources with the United Church, the Pri- mate’s Fund (Anglican) and World Renew (Christian Reformed) to support climate initiatives for partners in Eastern and Southern Africa.
But collective global action is necessary. At the last global conference on climate (COP26), leaders of wealthier (and more polluting) countries agreed to set up a fund for loss and damage for poorer countries. Churches, through ACT Alliance, had been lobbying along with others for 10 years for this to become a reality. We need to ensure that they de- liver on these commitments, and this includes Canada’s share.
Members of Danforth Grow Hope gather for a field visit in June 2023.
Growing Hope
Food insecurity caused by years of drought in the Horn of Africa has left hundreds of thousands in need of food assistance in Kenya. PHOTO CREDIT: CWS.
By the Rev Alex Bisset, Riverdale Presbyterian Church and Westminster Presbyterian Church in Toronto, Ont.
Six churches in the Danforth area of Toronto are working together to grow hope in a field about 45 min- utes away from their neighbour- hood, just outside the community of Stouffville.
These six congregations—in- cluding Riverdale Presbyterian and Westminster Presbyterian— are part of the Danforth Grow Hope Project in support of Ca- nadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB). A Grow Hope Project is different from a regular CFGB growing project because it involves urban congregations sponsoring acres to grow crops in a rural location.
The Foodgrains Bank, in its beginnings, was a farmer-driven program, where grains were do- nated and then sent to where they were needed. Today, the actual grain isn’t shipped overseas, rath- er the money raised by selling the crop is used to enable emergency food aid and long-term food se- curity. While still largely a rural program, Grow Hope projects are working to get city congregations involved.
Here’s how it works: urban churches raise money to pay for growing a specific acreage of a crop. In 2022, in our case, this was estimated at $500 per acre. The farmer that the Project part- ners with—for us it was Reesor Seed and Grain—does the field preparation and planting, harvests the crop and sells it, then donates the gross proceeds to CFGB.
In 2022, over the space of a few months, the 10 acres of the Danforth Grow Hope Pro- ject—two acres of which were sponsored by Westminster and Riverdale Churches—produced a yield worth $8,850, which means
that the $500 per acre that our churches donated grew, quite lit- erally, into $885 per acre.
But it was after harvest that the real growth happened. Through a grant from the Government of Canada, donations made to the Foodgrains Bank are eligible to be matched up to 4:1. That means the initial donation of $500 per acre, which grew into $885 per acre, ultimately became over $4,400 per acre. Through PWS&D partners around the world, that money was used to provide food aid to those in need, and to teach farmers methods to produce better and more reliable crops for themselves and for their families.
In 2023, with the price of eve- rything increasing, the cost per acre has risen to $600. Two new churches joined the original four partners, meaning that four de- nominations are now participat- ing, and the Danforth Grow Hope Project has nearly doubled in size, going from 10 acres in 2022 to 18 acres in 2023. The Danforth Grow Hope Project is a wonder- ful opportunity for local churches to work together. It also demon- strates the way that small ef- forts—like seeds—can grow into something bigger.
On June 19, 2023, representa- tives of several of those churches drove out to visit the field. I led the group in a short service of blessing. As part of this, I read from Psalm 65, and then prayed for good weather and favourable growing conditions. My prayer ended, “Help us to bring you glory by using well and sharing the good things we receive from you. Make us and others willing to share our time and our resources, so that all may receive what they need to live. For we ask all this in the name of Jesus, the Sower and the Harvester. Amen.”