News For You: 2015

Archive for 2015

Get Google Adsense Approval! 7 Things to Do That Really Work

Would you believe that I applied for Adsense with a WAP site that didn’t have any option to put Adsense codes?
Believe it or not, but it’s true. And Adsense rejected my application. Cause that application didn’t make any sense to Adsense team.
That time, I didn’t have any idea about Adsense and how it works. All I knew that website owners can make money from Adsense. So I thought why not give it a try. After all, I was a proud owner of a mobile site.
Like me, there are a lot of people who apply for Adsense with low quality sites. That’s why Google became more strict on approving new Adsense accounts to maintain its quality.

I believe that you have a good web site (not wap) but Google disapproved your application. May be, this is the reason why you are reading this post.
Getting rejected by Adsense is frustrating. After a few rejections, many new bloggers get this idea in their head that they won’t get Adsense approval ever. If you are one of them, you are not alone. And you are on the right place.
In this post, I will be sharing some tips on getting Adsense accounts. Most of these tips will be helpful mainly for Bloggers. I hope you’ll get approved by Adsense after reading this post. So keep reading…

7 Things to Do to Get Approved by Adsense

Google doesn’t reveal any hints on what basis they approve new account. All you can do is to maintain some standards before applying for Adsense. You can also consider the following tips as Google Adsense Approval Checklist.
1. Get a Top Level Domain
Those days are gone when people would get Adsense account with free sub domains site like blogspot, weebly etc. Google still approves sub domains site, but you have to make sure that your site has good contents, nice design, easy navigation etc.
It’s really tough to make sub domain sites compatible with Adsense standards. Google has already banned some sub domains site like .co.cc, .co.nr.
So I suggest you to grab a top-level domain like me. .Com, .net, .org, .in, .com.bd etc are the top-level domains. Here is an example to understand the difference.

Free Sub domain – roadtoblogging.blogspot.com
Top Level Domain – roadtoblogging.com

You can register a domain name from Godaddy.
Here are some important things you should consider before buying a domain name.

Don’t use hack, crack, downloads etc on your domain name.
Avoid copy right violation. (You cannot use others Brand Name on your domain).
Don’t use any adult term.
Also read: How to Choose a Good Domain Name

If you are going to create a WordPress blog, don’t forget to read this post: 7 Easy Steps to Create a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog
2. Good Design & Easy Navigation
You may have good contents on your site. But it doesn’t guarantee Adsense approval unless you’ve good design and easy navigation on your site.
If you want to make money from your site, then you should consider investing some money on site design. WordPress user can go for Premium Themes.
So make sure that you’ve a professional looking design with a good navigation. Don’t forget to create a logo for your blog.
3. Submit Site on Search Engines
Whenever you launch a site, you always want that people can discover your site easily. Search Engines are the place where people you find your site easily.
All you need to do is submit your sitemap on search engines.

And also make sure that Google has indexed your site’s pages. Type site:yourdomain.com in Google Search and check whether Google indexes your site or not. Sometimes Google takes one week or more to index your site. If you’ve some relevant backlinks, you pages will be indexed fast. Interlinking blog posts also helps Search Engine Bots to index your pages.
Read: Update WordPress Ping List for Quick Indexing
4. Connect Your Site With Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools
Analytics and Webmaster tools are two awesome tools by Google.
Google Analytics provides detailed statistics about your site. And Webmaster tools provides detailed report on site’s pages visibility on Google.
These two tools help you improve your site performance that increase the chance of getting Adsense account.

5. Publish Fresh and Unique Contents
This is the most important part.
You have to create fresh and unique contents before applying for Adsense. Adsense doesn’t require huge contents, but quality contents. Some bloggers got Adsense account with only 20-30 posts, while some didn’t get approval with more than 100 posts.
So quality contents matter a lot. Quality contents are those which are well-developed and researched, free from copyrighted things and illegal download links, not copied from others, user-friendly and detailed. Your posts need to have more than 500 words.
So try to publish some quality content. Remember, Quality content is always king.
Adsense Prohibited Content: Copyrighted contents, Adult content, Hacking & Cracking related contents, Gambling/Casino/Alcohol related contents and all illegal contents.
6. Remove Other Networks Ads
It’s not a bad idea to try some Adsense alternatives when you don’t have an Adsense account yet. But remove those Ads before applying for Adsense.
Though Google allows you to use another Ad Networks with Adsense, but it creates a bad impression to the Adsense team if your site is filled with other networks’ ads.
7. Create Important Pages
There are some pages that provide better user experience. Google always focuses on better user experience. Most of the new bloggers don’t create these pages. Having these pages creates a good impression to the Adsense team. So create the following pages before applying for Adsense.

About – Most of the first time visitors visit ‘About’ page. They want to know who you are behind the blog. In about page, you can write about yourself and your blog or whatever you want. Here is my about page.
Contact – This is the most ignored page. You will realize its important once you have it. You might have missed direct advertising because of not having contact page. Learn: How to Create Contact Page in WordPress.
Privacy Policy – According to Adsense TOS, you must have a privacy page that contains information about cookies, device-specific information, location information and other information stored on. So create a privacy policy page for your blog.

Other Things to Consider

If you’ve more the one site, then consider applying with best site.
Your content should be written in English or other Adsense supported languages.
Give your actual information while applying for Adsense account.
Your age must be 18 years or above to participate in Adsense Program.
Sometimes Google requires 6 months older domain in certain countries including China & India.
Avoid Paid Traffic. (Adsense doesn’t require a lot of traffic)
Don’t use copyrighted image, Use Images with Credits.
Get Google Authorship.

Finally, Read Adsense Terms and Conditions & AdSense Programme Policies.
Once your site is compatible with all the above facts, then apply for Adsense Account. Approval process takes 24 to 48 hours now.
Once you’ve got Adsense account, you can use Adsense ads on others site owned by you. That’s why you might have noticed that some low quality site contain Adsense Ads. But that is not a good idea, Always ensure that you site is compatible with Adsense policy before adding Ads. Adsense may ban your account if they find something wrong on your site.
Do let us know if you’ve any other tricks to get approved by Adsense. If you find this post useful, then don’t forget to share it on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

The best to decide on how to choose and buy insurance in potential way

1:40:00 AM

Acquiring property holders protection does not need to be a test. When you comprehend what you're purchasing, you'll understand how to purchase home protection that bodes well for your way of life. Property holders protection covers the things in your home and the house itself against a wide range of cataclysms. In case you're in a range that is not inclined to debacles, you'll likely pay an extremely sensible premium. You might likewise get a markdown on your accident protection on the off chance that you purchase both strategies from the same organization.

The Deductible Really Matters

When you figure out how to purchase home protection the right way, you'll understand exactly how essential the deductible is. You need to consider how the deductible functions while surveying your scope choices. The deductible is the sum that you'll pay in the event that you wind up making a case. High deductibles are the best approach for any individual who needs to pay the least conceivable premium. The issue with this technique is if something really turns out badly. Ensure you have the way to pay for the deductible in the occasion of an issue, or you could truly be in a bad position. A higher deductible will bring down your premiums, however will mean your out of pocket costs are high. On the off chance that you pick this system, you better have cash close by in the case of an issue.

Keep a Detailed Inventory of Your Possessions

Numerous individuals are not in-your-face enough about keeping up a stock of individual things that they can protect. This winds up bringing on a standout amongst the most widely recognized issues that individuals have. Unless you have recorded your belonging, you won't have the capacity to get paid for them in the case of a case. This implies you ought to have receipts and a photo if conceivable. You ought to keep up a nitty gritty rundown so that there's no contending later about what was really in the house. On the off chance that you don't have that sort of rundown, you'll get paid a littler sum than you may seek after. That could make it hard to supplant the things you claim. When you know how to purchase home protection, you'll understand that insurance agencies are just going to pay you the substitution estimation of things and for the property itself. Remember that with the goal that you know about what the substitution values truly are. You won't get more than this quality regardless of what else happens with your case process. In the event that you can't demonstrate the value of things, you won't get paid by any means. You can ask your insurance agency what they think the substitution estimation of your abode is. In the event that it appears to be low, you can purchase a ride to expand the quality. An ideal opportunity to do this is before you ever make a case. Ordinarily the protected and the safety net provider are not in a state of harmony about what the structure is worth. They may utilize an alternate technique for valuation than you do.

Why making children living in care homes leave when they turn 18 needs to change

2:04:00 AM

For most teenagers, turning 18 is a cause for celebration, but for those living in care homes, it means suddenly having to make their own way in the world

By the time she was 17, Jemma was in a children’s home, having already lived in 18 different places. While other kids her age might have looked forward to their 18th as the moment to enjoy their first legal pint, Jemma’s landmark birthday was significant as the date on which she would, for the final time, be thrown out of the place she called home.

There are nearly 70,000 children in care in Britain. The vast majority live with foster families and, owing to a change in law last year, these young people can expect to remain the responsibility of the state until they turn 21, unless they feel ready to move on beforehand.

But for the 6,000 or so young people living in Britain’s children’s homes – who were not affected by new legislation piloted by the previous government and bought into force in 2014 – this is not the case.

Jemma’s removal from residential care came at a time when she was finally beginning to settle, with the help of a brilliant key-worker: “She was ace. There were nothing going wrong when she was around. She listened to what I had to say. She made time for me and we did things together.”

Suddenly having all that pulled from under her was a heavy blow: “For me, it’s like Social Services kicked me out when I needed them the most, when I had nothing and I had no-one.”

The practice of rescinding responsibility for the well-being of young people at an age when many simply aren’t able to cope is the subject of a moving documentary, Kicked Out Kids, which airs Tuesday evening on Channel 4.

Janes Van Vollenstee qualified as a social worker in South Africa before moving to the UK in 1996. Having worked in a local authority until 2012, involved with children in and leaving care, and also child protection, he is now the manager of the Moving On team for the children and families charity Break, which offers transition and mentoring services to young people at this critical juncture. Leaving home is difficult at the best of times, he says: “Now imagine a young person has been in very negative environments, received forms of abuse – with fostering placement breakdowns which have resulted in them moving to a children’s home – it is understandable then that there will be a lot of anxiety and anger, while grappling to understand why they are living differently from their peers...

“For those young people, with everything that has happened in their life, at age of 17 telling them, ‘On your birthday you are going to move on, ready or not...’?”

It is unsurprising, he concludes, that so many are terrified of leaving care and struggle to settle on the outside.

Demornia Cattrill was a baby when he and his twin brother were first taken into care – before being returned to their mother, who remained violent. Years later, when the boys were in Year 9, his brother refused to go home from school one day. Demornia’s response at the time was: “Oh my gosh, it’s happening. Someone’s finally plucked up the courage to say something.”

Though he says it was a relief, he also felt “panicky” because there were also two younger brothers at home, who he now knows went straight into foster care, while the older twins ended up at a children’s home. Now aged 18 and having left full-time care nearly a year ago, Demornia says care was “all right”. “There was a good understanding between staff and kids. You got out what you put in. Even though you could be an arsehole, some of the staff would see that you were still good; finding your feet and that. Obviously there were also a few members of staff who were arseholes, but the staff that cared actually did care a lot.”

He is glad of the opportunities he wouldn’t have got if he’d been living at home. “I got to go to basketball camp on the Isle of Man, twice, and I went on a trip to France.” Mainly, he devoted himself to training in mixed martial arts, first as “something to get my mind off everything”, now with a dream of going pro.

Since leaving care, however – initially to a semi-independent lodging in someone else’s house when he was 17, before moving to full independence – Demornia says he’s been “left in the dark”. “I was almost brought to court because of my council tax. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. One minute everything’s being done for you, the next you’re out of their hands and you’re all on your own. I have a friend in foster care. He’s 20 and has everything provided. What’s that about?”

After finishing college, where he studied catering, Demornia started looking for work.

“I worked in a warehouse from October to January, getting minimum wage. (At 17, it was £3 something an hour; when I hit 18, it went to £5.13.) In January I got laid off. Since then I’ve had no income whatsoever and nobody’s helped me. I managed to stretch my last week’s pay, then got some overtime before I left. Obviously that’s now run out and I’ve got letters saying bills are due.”

Denornia Cantrill, a young man who was brought up in care and now has his own home (Warren Smith)

The long-term prospects for care-leavers are not good. Of the adult prison population, 27 per cent have been in care at some time. And almost 40 per cent of prisoners under 21 have been in care as children, as have one third of rough sleepers, and 70 per cent of women working in prostitution.

New figures, published last week, revealed the long-term cost in Britain of “picking up the pieces from damaging social problems affecting young people” – totalling around £17bn a year, according to research by the Early Years Foundation charity. Around £5bn of this came directly, it said, from looking after children in care on a yearly basis – but the long-term expense is perhaps more significant. An estimated further £4bn a year – nearly a quarter of the total cost - is currently spent on benefits for 18-24 year olds not in education, employment or training (NEETs), with a further £900m spent helping young people suffering from mental health issues, or battling drug and alcohol problems. Just the sorts of difficulties young people who leave care unsupported are likely to face, as Natasha Finlayson, chief executive of the Who Cares? Trust, points out. “Research consistently shows that leaving care before a young person is ready for independence tends to lead to poor outcomes, with mental health – particularly depression – the biggest factor we see, followed by debt,” she says.

In the coming weeks, the Department for Education will consider the recommendations made in a joint report by the NCB, the Who Cares? Trust and other organisations, which suggests models for rolling out so-called Staying Put arrangements across residential homes, while acknowledging that this is not a straightforward prospect. Not least because of child protection issues: if you mix children and young adults, it requires plenty of legislative and practical frameworks. At an estimated £76m, it won’t come cheap. But considering the long-term financial and emotional burden on services and young people, Enver Soloman of the National Children’s Bureau says this is surely a small price to pay: “If you support a young person properly up to the age of 21, it is much less likely they will fall into difficulty and impose a financial burden on other services and state agencies.”

Another problem, Finlayson suggests, is a deep-rooted culture of children’s homes, which are often “seen as a placement of last resort”. “It is really unhelpful that we have these ideas,” she says. “There are examples from other countries, like those in Scandinavia, which show how really good, constructive work can be done, rather than using children’s homes like a holding pen as we do, with workers who are not well-trained or properly qualified.”

Break’s Van Vollenstee believes the greatest challenge is building a system that allows social workers to invest time in relationship-building rather than constantly filling in forms and assessments. “At the point when they leave care, many young people are still processing what happened to them prior to coming into care, adjusting and learning to be accountable for their actions.” What they really need is continuity and support; people in their lives who will take a parental role in the absence of any other guiding figure. In reality, though, support workers – who are only obliged to see young people once every two months after they’ve turned 18 – often only have time for phone calls or sign-posting to other organisations that offer practical help.

“You can teach young people how to budget or to cook, but no-one can prepare them for what it’s like to be home alone at 9 or 10 at night with no-one to talk to. That is what we hear time and time again – the loneliness – and that’s when they often get tempted to move in with negative circles to reduce the loneliness.”

On leaving care, Jemma moved in with her aunt, her late father’s sister, last year, but that didn’t work out. “There were lots of complications. We didn’t get to know each other well enough. I was there for three or four months, then from there into temporary accommodation, then to another place which was like your own flat but there were staff who came in during the day, which made me feel well uncomfortable – I had more privacy in a kids’ home.” After getting kicked out of there, she ended up in a B&B in Huddersfield, a two-hour walk from her friends in Halifax. Now she is in Halifax in social housing.

On the phone, Jemma is bubbly and upbeat, but over the years, she has tried to take her life several times. “I don’t know; it’s like an issue of not being able to control it sometimes,” she says. “Even though I can speak so openly about things, sometimes I don’t tell the things I need to tell. Sometimes I’ll think I don’t even know who I am. When you’ve been through so many families you aren’t going to know who you are by the end of it.”

In practice, the age of leaving care is often younger than 18, with 31 per cent of the 9,990 care-leavers in 2013 aged just 16 or 17. Moving on at this age to live semi-independently is something that is encouraged by local authorities on the basis that the young person ‘transitions’ at a time when they will still have their rent paid and are entitled to ongoing support.

But some feel that local authorities are often too keen to get young people off their books. Pressures are such that staff often feel they have to prioritise younger charges, Van Vollenstee says, and the older children feel that – and don’t understand why – their needs are no longer of importance: “When a young person leaves care, what they need is someone to say, ‘Let’s talk about what is happening in your life. I’m here, let’s have a coffee and talk.’

“They need to know this is life and it’s full of challenges, that it can be stressful and you need to learn to be resilient and receptive.”

That’s where organisations like his step in, to offer the message: we won’t drop you.

Demornia was just 17 when he moved out of residential care, into semi-independent lodgings. Now that he is no longer entitled to the £55 a week he got when he was living semi-independently, he says his support workers are no longer guardians so much as an advisory service. In that case, he wonders: “Why are you here? If you’re not going to help me in any way, you might as well fuck off.”

Now he is back in college every day on a military preparation course and hopes to join the Marines. “I want to prove to everybody who says I’m just going to be a drug dealer or in prison – I want to prove them wrong and show that just ’cause I had a shit upbringing doesn’t mean I can’t change it.”

Indian millionaire charged with murder after ramming slow security guard

1:56:00 AM

Local media reported that Mohammed Nisham, 39, rammed a 50-year-old security guard who later died in hospital

Mohammed Nisham allegedly drove his Hummer jeep into a security guard, named only as K Chandrabose, after the man delayed opening the gate to the millionaire’s home in Thissur two weeks ago.

Mr Chandrabose, 50, succumbed to his injures yesterday. It is believed that he died of cardiac arrest after spending two weeks on life support.

Local news outlets reported that the controversial millionaire – a regular on India’s gossip pages – chased the security guard around a fountain in his car before battering him with an iron bar.

A Hummer car, pictured here in the US

Mr Nisham has now been taken in custody, police official Biju Kumar told the Mail Online.

The 29-year-old millionaire is reportedly facing several other criminal charges.

“We are planning to slap on him various provisions under Kerala Anti-Social Activities Prevention Act (KAAPA),’’ a police officertold the Indian Express. The warning is similar to a British ASBO and is more commonly used on members of local gangs.

Mr Nisham is a well-known tobacco supplier, and has a hotel and jewellery business in the Middle East.

It is not the first time he has had a brush with the law. In 2013 he allowed his then nine-year-old son to drive his Ferrari. The incident was filmed by his wife and posted on social media, causing outrage.

In the same year he allegedly locked a female police officer in another of his cars after she pulled him over for a routine check.

The millionaire refused to allow the distressed officer out of the car after she entered to take the keys to prevent him driving away. Standing outside, he locked the car remotely and did not release the woman until the arrival of her colleagues.

Ash Wednesday 2015: What is it and why is it an important day for Christians?

1:49:00 AM

Ash Wednesday is marked 46 days before Easter Sunday

What does the day signify?

It marks the first day of fasting, repentance, prayer and self-control. Luxury or rich foods such as meat and dairy are often avoided by those taking part in Lent.

Abstention from personal “bad habits” such as watching television or eating too much sugar is also commonly practised.

When is Ash Wednesday?

The day is marked on different dates each year. It falls on 18 February this year, the day after Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day.

Rich ingredients are traditionally used up before Lent on Shrove Tuesday

How is it celebrated?

During church services, clergy use ashes burned at the previous year’s Palm Sunday mixed with holy water or olive oil to mark a cross on a worshipper’s forehead as a sign of repentance.

This is to signify the Biblical passage in Genesis 3:19: “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.”

Why is it 46 days before Easter, and not 40?

Although Lent lasts for six weeks, Sundays are not included as they are considered a day for worship and rest.

Ash Wednesday is marked 46 days before Easter to imitate the full 40 days Jesus spent fasting in a desert before being blessed by John the Baptist.

How to Protect Google AdSense Account From Invalid Clicks

1:16:00 AM

For an ordinary blogger, Google Adsense is the most easily and the most trusted means to make money through blogging. Nowadays, getting Google Adsense approval is somewhat hard, especially in some selected countries.
And moreover, even if you get your adsense account approved, the next threat against your account is about getting banned. Your Google Adsense account may get banned for a variety of reasons, the main two reasons are that of terms and condition violation and invalid clicks.
And among the two, invalid clicks are the major threat against your Adsense. If you do not detect and report invalid click activity to Google at the early stage, then Google may ban your Google Adsense account, making you un-eligible for the amount you earn through Google Adsense.
Even if you’re facing invalid clicks issue on your blog, there is no need to worry. As there are lots of ways to discourage invalid click activity and protect your Google Adsense account from being banned.And below are some important and commonly used ways to protect Google Adsense account from invalid click activity.

1. Notice Sudden Growth In Your Google Adsense Earnings

The main point that leads to clues of invalid click activity, is your earnings itself. Therefore, in order to protect your Google Adsense account, it is your duty to notice your daily earnings.
Notice your Google Adsense analytics at least once a day, and if you see sudden growth or fluctuation in your Google Adsense clicks, earnings or CPC, then it’s time to act quickly.
If you suspect an invalid activity according to these stats, then remove Google Adsense ads from your blog for a while.

2. Notify Google If You Smell Some Kind Of Invalid Activity

If you smell some kind of invalid click activity on your blog, then the first and foremost action to do, is to notify Google Adsense team about the same. So that, they can take care of such clicks and that you do not lose your Google Adsense account.
Below is how you can notify Google Adsense team about invalid click activity on your blog:

First of all, navigate to the contact page for reporting invalid click activity, here [link: http://goo.gl/20raAX ].
Now, fill up the form and hit submit.
And now, your file will be viewed by the Google Adsense team, and they will contact you back, if necessary.

Basically, what this step does is that it allows Google Adsense to return the money earned at the time of invalid activity back to advertisers, thus helping you safe-proof your Google Adsense account.

3. Use Plugins To Prevent Invalid Click Activity

If you’re using WordPress as your blogging platform, then the best method to prevent invalid click activity on your blog, is by using related plugins to prevent invalid click activity on your blog.
One of the best free plugin to prevent invalid clicks is the Adsense Click Fraud Monitoring Plugin link: http://goo.gl/fPHLGK. It is the most commonly used plugin to protect invalid clicks on your Google Adsense ads.
This plugin also monitors invalid clicks on other PPC networks. And hence, this plugin helps you protect your Google Adsense account from being banned due to invalid click issue.

Final Words o Protect Google AdSense Account From Invalid Clicks

The above mentioned are some common ways to protect your Google Adsense account from invalid fraud clicks. As I said in the beginning, getting an approved Google Adsense account is getting harder nowadays. And once approved, it is our responsibility to prevent invalid clicks and safeguard our Google Adsense account.

I hope this article helped you to protect your Google Adsense account from fraud clicks. If you have some more interesting ways to protect invalid clicks activity for PPC ads, do share them below.

So can we really feed the world? Yes — and here’s how

1:08:00 AM

Over the past six months I’ve been trying to figure out how we can feed ourselves sustainably and equitably without wrecking the planet. I’ve been reading, interviewing experts, and blogging as I learn. This, the final post of the series, is a synthesis of what I’ve found out.
If the world goes on with business as usual, there’s not going to be enough food to feed everyone by 2050. A lot of things would have to change.
And a lot of things should change! Currently, the daily effort to satisfy the collective appetite of humanity is causing deforestation, erosion, extinction, and massive release of greenhouse gases. In changing how it feeds itself, humankind can drive down poverty, sequester greenhouse gas, conserve wild environments, and put organic matter back into the soil. All of that is plausibly within reach.
Let’s start with population. If we can’t get a handle on our swelling numbers, everything else is moot. So what would make human population level off, or even fall? There are always political measures — like China’s one-child policy — but laws like that are hard to pass and even harder to enforce. They restrict freedom while producing terrible unintended consequences — like families getting rid of girls.
There’s another option that actually works better: Improve the lives of poor women and children.
“If you want parents to make the choice to reduce their number of offspring, there’s no better way than making sure those offspring survive,” said Joel Cohen, author of the magisterial book How Many People Can the Earth Support? “There’s no example of decline in fertility that has not been preceded by a decline in child mortality that I know of.”
This is counterintuitive. But there is abundant evidence of this pattern all over the world, regardless of religion. Where children die and women are repressed, population booms. Where children thrive, and women are empowered, population growth stops.
As sustainable agriculture expert Gordon Conway writes in his book, One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?:

A popular misconception is that providing the developing countries with more food will serve to increase populations; in other words, it is a self-defeating policy. The more food women have, the more children they will have and the greater will be their children’s survival, leading to population growth, so goes the argument. However, the experience of the demographic transition described above suggests the opposite. As people become more prosperous, which includes being better fed and having lower child mortality, the fewer children women want. Providing they then have access to family planning methods, the fertility rates will drop and the population will cease to grow.

To control our impact on the environment, we have to stop growing. A measure of freedom and security for women and children is a precondition to ending population growth. The key factor connecting child mortality and lack of women’s rights is poverty. Therefore, environmental efforts have to be, first and foremost, campaigns for social justice.
If ending all poverty were as simple as producing enough food to feed everyone, our work would be done. Farms already grow enough food for every person on the planet — 2,800 calories a day, if it were divvied up equally. But we have never shared resources equally, and no one seems to have figured out a realistic way of making people start. Attempts by governments to distribute food in equal shares have failed; they almost immediately lead to black markets, with the poor selling food and the rich buying it. An investment banker in New York will always eat better than a beggar in Lagos.It doesn’t work for governments take complete control of food markets, but it’s also a bad idea for governments to completely wash their hands of responsibility for feeding people. If left entirely to market forces, food flows toward wealth and away from poverty, which leads to famine. Governments must intervene to prevent hunger. Social safety nets — in the form of meals, money, healthcare, and education — really do increase the likelihood that children born into poverty will be able to go to school and make better lives for themselves.
So there’s been a huge shift in thinking from the days of the Green Revolution, when the driving imperative was to increase production. The goal has gone from increasing farm yields to decreasing poverty.
It turns out, however, that if you want to decrease poverty, one of the best ways to do it is to increase farm yields. As the economist Michael Lipton put it: “No country has achieved mass dollar poverty reduction without prior investment in agriculture.”More than 70 percent of the world’s poor are farmers, or work for farmers in the rural economy. In places where there are no jobs, and the economy sucks, people survive by carving up the land into smaller and smaller plots and working it more intensively. Because of this, typical farm sizes are actually getting smaller in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. As of 2000, the average farm was 2.5 acres in Asia and 3.7 acres in Sub-Saharan Africa, not counting South Africa.
Americans like small farms, but this trend toward tiny landholdings in poor countries is not a good thing. When I spoke to a pair of Ethiopian farmers, they told me that what they really wanted was for their children to go to school rather than working on the land and eventually dividing it up. They wanted labor-saving tools — herbicide, plows, planting machines — so that the children could spend time on schoolwork rather than farm work.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, farmers get a little over a ton of grain per hectare in an average year — about what farmers in Europe were getting during the Roman Empire. Clearly there’s tremendous room for improvement, and increasing yields puts money directly into the pockets of the poor. At the same time, it allows their children to go to school and brings down the cost of food — a benefit to both rural and urban poor.
Another argument for increasing yields is that, in the last decade, we got closer to the bottom of the world grain barrel than we have since the 1970s. Economists largely agree that this lack of supply was the primary factor in causing price shocks: The price of food spiked twice, which caused suffering and hunger among the poor.
The final argument for increasing farm productivity is that it will keep people from clearing forests and infiltrating the last remaining wild lands. The world is making progress on this front. Environmental scientist Jesse Ausubel has made a convincing case that we are already past the point of peak farmland. Since 1998 the amount of land devoted to agriculture has fallen, while the global food supply has continued rising. Reducing the human footprint means increasing farm yields.And yet, despite all the arguments for increasing yields, the goal is controversial, thanks to the legacy of the Green Revolution. During the Green Revolution, the push to increase yields was focused on large farmers, and sometimes smaller farmers did not benefit. There’s a huge amount of conflicting literature on this point. As Conway writes, “A review of over three hundred studies found that for 80 percent of the studies inequality had worsened.” In addition, the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizer during the Green Revolution caused all sorts of environmental problems.
It’s possible to learn from the mistakes of the Green Revolution and strive to increase yields in a way that benefits the poor and is environmentally friendly. The current jargon for this is “sustainable intensification,” which — as happens with jargon — is taken to mean everything and nothing.
Sustainable intensification includes a panoply of agroecological techniques. Farmers are planting nitrogen-fixing trees, which shelter crops, prevent erosion, and provide fertilizer. There’s the push-pull strategy, where farmer push bugs away from grain by growing insect-repellent plants along the rows, while also pulling pests away from the crops by planting an attractive plants outside the fields. Aquaculture is on the rise, creating an opportunity for more fish polyculture. There is significant evidence that these techniques are already providing a part of the solution.
However, I don’t think that they can, or should, be the only solution. In Ghana, farmers trained by 4-H in agroecological techniques abandon them when they actually have to manage their own land and make a living. And an organic farmer training people in Malawi has found that teaching small farmers how to use a little bit of synthetic fertilizer and herbicide is much more likely to work than the all-natural alternatives. As the U.N.’s former special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, put it, “While investment in organic fertilizing techniques should be a priority, this should not exclude the use of other fertilizers.”Farmers in poor countries have more important priorities than strictly dividing organic from industrial farm tools. As I put it in this story, farm technology isn’t a war between good and evil — it’s a quest for whatever works. Small farmers have proven that they can use tools of industrial ag in a non-industrial way. They use high-tech hybrid seeds to get record-breaking yields with an alternative cropping technique. Across India, small farmers have found that genetically engineered cotton decreases their pesticide exposure while increasing their earnings. And in Niger, farmers developed a method of using Big Ag fertilizer on a tiny scale: by filling a soda-cap with a mix of phosphorus and nitrogen, and dumping this micro-dose in with each seed.

GMOs, because they are politicized, are especially controversial. I’ve heard the argument that we won’t be able to feed the world without GMOs. I doubt that’s true. Genetic engineering is not a silver bullet. At the same time, the goal of helping small farmers improve their lives gets a lot harder if they are held to an impossibly Edenic standard, and we keep rejecting the tools that they’d like to use.
Many people worry that giving poor farmers industrial technology will lock them into an industrial path. There’s no doubt that is true, as far as it goes. If it’s easy to get nitrogen, you may not want to do all the work, and develop the skills needed, to nurture nitrogen-fixing trees to maturity. But as I’ve argued here, small farmers are already taking a middle path — it’s not as if use of some modern technology will forever corrupt them. When I looked at path-dependency in agriculture, I found that it exists in many small forms, but can be overcome with government assistance and regulation. It’s also worth noting that many small farmers already suffer from path-dependency: They are locked into generational poverty. For me at least, the most important goal is breaking out of poverty, even if that leaves people short of true sustainability. How can I demand perfect sustainability from the poor, when I haven’t achieved it myself?
OK, you’ve reached 2,000 words, it’s time to pause, stretch, regroup, and look at a picture of a baby meerkat.

So far, I’ve argued that the goal is to decrease poverty — that means building social safety nets, and increasing small-farm production. (Because I’m a food and ag guy I’m focusing on farms, but the safety nets are just as important.) I think that increasing yields should be done according to the rule of whatever-works-best, rather than going all natural or all industrial.
And that brings us to solutions: First, what do poor farmers need to make more money? And second, what can those of us living in richer countries do to make food more sustainable and equitable?
Helping poor farmers increase yields
To make more money, farmers need information, inputs, and infrastructure. Information, to learn better techniques; inputs, like fertilizer, disease-resistant seeds, and nitrogen-fixing trees; and infrastructure, which comprises everything from roads and irrigation ditches to agricultural universities.
Governments and charities are spreading information with agricultural advisors. There are also innumerable technological efforts to spread knowledge. I wrote about Plant Village for example. Or there’s Digital Green, which makes videos of farmers carrying out various techniques, and then, in the evening, goes into the village and project the movies. It’s entertainment for the local farmers, and they also learn from someone who speaks their dialect and looks like them.

Inputs and infrastructure go together, because the lack of good roads is the main reason that farmers have trouble getting the supplies they need. Roads also allow farmers to get their crops to market with less spoilage.
Roads are terrible for the environment when built through undeveloped wilderness, but great for the environment when built through poverty-stricken farmland where many people are carving up the land into tiny plots for farms. You need roads to get sustainable intensification — without roads, people keep pushing farther out into marginal lands.
My jaw just about hit the floor when Birtukan Dagnachew Tegegn, a farmer from Ethiopia, told me that there’s no road to her land, and it’s a four-hour walk to the nearest town. Imagine how difficult it is for her to get tree saplings, or a bag of fertilizer, to her farm. A road would save her a lot of time and money.
Conway writes that roadbuilding is a proven intervention:

In India, every additional million rupees spent on rural roads during the 1990s was found to lift 881 people out of poverty. Villages in Bangladesh with better road access had higher levels of input use and agricultural production, greater incomes, and greater wage-earning opportunities.

Roads, canals, and electric systems require government intervention. But small, distributed infrastructure is important too. For instance, when farmers get the machines to process their crops, like the banana farmers of Talamanca, it drastically reduces food waste, while opening up international markets to small farmers.
There’s one other thing beyond information, inputs, and infrastructure that farmers need: money. Farmers all around the world go into debt to buy the things they need to start a new crop, and then pay it off with the harvest. Poor farmers frequently don’t have bank accounts, and take high-interest loans. Banking via mobile phone is solving this problem, and it’s even possible in some places for small farmers to buy affordable crop insurance on their phones.
I’m been making the argument here for some serious government intervention to build infrastructure and train farmers, but it’s also important for governments to help by getting out of the way when farmers want to start businesses serving their growing rural economy. Poor countries tend to have a mind-boggling amount of regulation that hampers homegrown businesses.
What can the people reading this actually do?
A lot, actually. Unless you are the agricultural minister of Kenya or the director of the Rockefeller Foundation, there’s not much you can do with any of the preceding. But people living in richer countries have tremendous influence over multinational corporations that do business, for better or worse, in poor countries. We can also be a lot better at sharing our portion of food, by eating less, wasting less, and choosing more environmentally responsible meals.
There are just a small number of corporations that serve as multinational middlemen — buying crops from farmers in one place and selling them to food makers in another place. Jason Clay, a senior vice president at the World Wildlife Fund, has narrowed it down to 100 businesses — get them to act responsibly, he says, and you save the world. We’re already seeing this working with soy in the Brazilian Amazon, and it’s beginning with palm oil in southeast Asia. The key to getting these companies to commit to sustainability are regular people with reasonable requests, putting strategically targeted pressure on companies. When big companies make sustainability promises, they do a 180 — and instead of resisting regulation, they begin asking governments to regulate their competitors to level the playing field. This really does have the potential to change the world.
The other thing we can do — as I put it here — is to eat with smaller forks. That means changing our diet so that we eat less meat, less food in general, and throw less of it away. There’s also a side benefit: We’ll be healthier. As I wrote:

Right now we live in an upside-down world where the people who get the least food are the ones who are doing the most manual labor. (They’re also the most likely to suffer from infectious disease.) And in the most developed countries, we have technology taking care of all our physical, calorie-burning labor, while we sit on our butts all day and drink everyone else’s milkshake.

All this can seem overwhelmingly large. And it is. The challenge of feeding humanity is enormous and unprecedented. No species, that I know of, has ever organized itself to ensure that every one of its kind is fed. We have the means to meet this demand in the short term, and we are in the process of figuring out how to meet it in the long term. Human welfare depends on our figuring this out. So does the welfare of thousands of other species that live alongside us.
The good news is that, after studying this for six months, I can say that meeting the challenge seems entirely possible. It requires the rich to eat more responsibly, poor farms to become more productive, and all farms to be continuously improving their sustainability. To make this possible, governments must provide safety nets and infrastructure, while cutting red tape.
All this requires a series of political and social changes that are difficult to implement but almost universally supported. No one is morally opposed to reducing food waste, or to increasing the income of small farmers. The most serious impediment is inertia, and we’re already moving in the right direction.

I’ll end with one small, easily achievable suggestion for people who want a well-fed world. (In this piece I also make some recommendations for shrinking forks.) Learn a killer lentils recipe — not just something edible, but something that excites your friends and family as much as steak does. Legumes, like lentils and beans, fertilize the soil and provide a good nutritional replacement for meat, which generally has a big environmental impact. (Though not always — carbon-negative beef exists and is a great alternative.) If everyone replaced one meat dish a week, deliciously, we’d all take a big step toward an equitable and sustainable food system.
Correction: This story included a reference to Zaire as a tossed off example of a developing country. That was a mistake, since the territory previously known as Zaire is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo. Grist regrets the error and the writer has been sentenced to remedial third-grade geography.

Grist is looking for the fall 2015 class of fellows

12:59:00 AM

Are you an early-career journalist, storyteller, or multimedia wizard who digs what we do? Then Grist wants you!

We are now accepting applications for the fall 2015 class of the Grist Fellowship.
Once again we’re inviting writers, editors, and online journalists of every stripe to come work with us for six months. You get to hone your journalistic chops at a national news outlet, deepen your knowledge of environmental issues, and experiment with storytelling. We get to teach you and learn from you and bring your work to our audience. You won’t get rich — but you will get paid.

You’ll work closely with our editors in Seattle, and with the program’s director, Andrew Simon, on reporting and executing stories for Grist. Our primary subject areas are food, climate and energy, cities, science and technology, pop culture, and environmental justice. If your skills extend into realms like video, audio, and data visualization, all the better.
For fellowships that begin in July/August 2015, please submit applications by March 30, 2015. Full application instructions here.
Good luck!