Food Security Solved by Subsistence Farmers

Nepalese-woman-feeds-her-son_400Food security is a serious issue for every country that has natural disasters, wars that create refugees, and limited resources for growing food crops. One of the best solutions for these problems is for sovereign nations to grow their own food supplies, process them into long shelf life, nutritious meals, and store them in strategic warehouses around their country. The source of the food crops for these meals could be the local subsistence farmer. Connecting the subsistence farmers to the global food security supply chain could be incredibly valuable in solving this serious problem. Farmers living in poverty could in fact rescue people trapped in disasters by selling their crops to the processor who makes meals that are sold to the local government who stores those meals in warehouses.

For countries that do not have the ability to manage this process PacMoore Products, Cheetah Development, and the Global Food Exchange are partnering to put those pieces together. Cheetah Development has a proven model of mobilizing significant numbers of small shareholder farm groups in Tanzania; growing and drying fruits and vegetables using patented low cost solar dryers; and storing those products to take advantage of rising prices months after harvesting. PacMoore has a long history of processing food ingredients. That same technology is being adapted to package healthy food ingredients into shelf stable meals that can be stored up to 25 years. The Global Food Exchange has developed a novel concept to help governments own rights to large quantities of shelf stable meals stored globally in strategic locations to support any country facing one of the top three food security issues. The partnership of these three companies can provide countries like Nepal with food from their own farmers to feed their people after a devastating earthquake. We can also provide a country like Saudi Arabia with meals from East Africa. Those meals could be stored in their local warehouses strategically placed to provide long term food security if their ports are compromised.

Food security solved by subsistence farmers. Food for thought.

Bill Moore

CEO

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a B.S. in chemical engineering, Bill became a product development engineer for Procter & Gamble in 1985. After the unexpected death of his stepfather, Bill left P&G to lead his stepfather’s company, George Meyer Company. He developed a functional ability to process recycled starch products, while also recognizing a need by many companies in the food industry for a trusted and capable contract manufacturing partner. Over the last 20 years Bill has evolved the company to meet this need by providing packaging, blending, spray drying, and extrusion.