A debut cookbook of climate-resilient recipes

UNDP’s cookbook highlights efforts to strengthen climate resilience and enhance food security across six countries

UNDP launched a new cookbook looking at how climate change is affecting food security in developing countries and how communities are adapting their traditional recipes to survive.

The new cookbook, ‘Adaptive Farms, Resilient Tables’, was launched on Monday night in Brooklyn.

It features traditional recipes from six countries – Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Haiti, Mali, Niger and Sudan – and tells the personal stories of how people have coped when their traditional sources of food began to change.

The stories are inspiring, showing how people and communities have taken action to strengthen their own food security.

Communities in these countries are supported by the Canada-UNDP Climate Change Adaptation Facility, a partnership between UNDP and the Government of Canada to help people find sources of food and agricultural practices that are more resilient and sustainable in the face of a changing climate.

Global project coordinator, Jennifer Baumwoll of UNDP, said climate change had impacted crop production in all six countries.

“In tackling the threat of food insecurity, these communities could adapt their traditional recipes and employ more innovative cooking methods,” Ms Baumwoll said. “It was a truly inspiring story and one we felt had to be captured, hence why we chose to share this through the cookbook.”

The launch event was held at Brooklyn restaurant Lighthouse, which is devoted to environmental sustainability. Brooklyn chefs prepared dishes inspired by the country’s recipes and speakers from Haiti and Cambodia talked about some of the food security challenges in those challenges, and how communities overcame those challenges.

About the Project

Recognizing that agriculture is a critical source of livelihoods for more than four out of ten people globally, and that 80 percent of food eaten in the developing world comes from 500 million smallholder farms worldwide, UNDP, Canada, and the six partner countries are committed to strengthening local adaptation measures. The cookbook is a reflection of these efforts to strengthen the resilience of the most vulnerable, smallholder farmers.

Manager of a project in Haiti under the Climate Change Adaptation Facility, Dorine Jean-Paul, said the cookbook will help to share the farmers’ experiences with other countries.

“More than 1,080 farmers in southern Haiti were provided technical advise, resources, and planning support to make their household’s farm plots more resilient to the region’s droughts and heavy rainfall,” she said.

The cookbook is available through the Curio Spice Company Website. When you purchase the Curio Spice Kit ($24 value) you'll get the ookbook for free, with $25 going towards supporting UNDP's efforts around the world.

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UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in 177 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations. www.undp.org. Other partners: Lighthouse, CurioSpice, Pathway to Paris