Feed the Future with ProFarms Gateway

My name is Dr. Jacqueline McDonnough, and I’ve spent my life and career as a sustainable agriculture enthusiast. This passion evolved out of my interest in the Earth Sciences, my years of involvement in science education and my sense of the pressing need to address the impacts of climate change on our most vulnerable populations. I established the ProFarms Gateway organization with co-founder Steven McDonnough, an international trade and development professional specializing in off-grid infrastructure solutions, to help bridge the knowledge and technology gap between the United States and Africa, a critical step in accelerating rural development. We focus on providing climate-smart and regenerative farming training for rural farmers and their families to improve livelihoods.

A huge gap exists in crop diversity among families in Ghana. The over-reliance on one specific crop to meet the food and nutritional requirements of many households in rural areas has degenerated the health situation in many homes in the communities near our farm. Many children face hunger and malnutrition, and the national Ghana School Feeding Programme is grossly underfunded. Therefore, ProFarms has taken it upon itself to supply food crops grown on our farms to the local primary school to support their underfunded school feeding program. For World Food Day in Oct 2022, we donated various fruit and vegetables to the Essiase Primary School that were grown as a part of our 2022 local youth and women training.

To support food and nutritional diversity and the development of both children in these areas and to help break the multigenerational cycle of poverty, ProFarms is working with local youth and mothers to provide formalized training around climate-smart and regenerative farming practices. The people within the local community cannot support the school feeding program because they lack access to seedlings, technical know-how, and climate-smart techniques to grow the food themselves. ProFarms has committed to being their supporter.

Now that we are in the dry season, we need to prepare an irrigated 2-acre garden to demonstrate sustainable food-growing techniques for indigenous foods and crops that will diversify the food nutrition of families, especially those with youth and women of reproductive age. We need to raise funds for site clearing and preparation, digging of a new water well, a solar water pump, water storage tanks, irrigation, and everything else that will go into producing this part of our demonstration project.

ProFarms Gateway is uniquely positioned to support the schooling program and bring the technical and material know-how to the Essiase area because we own the farmland, have established critical relationships with the local community, and have the technical expertise in regenerative agricultural practices. For more info on our work, please visit www.profarms.org

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This is a big task, and while we have made some great strides, ProFarms still has much to accomplish....we need your support!