The world’s food crisis is as imperative as the current financial crisis. We hear updates about government-funded financial bailouts on a daily basis, but there is not as much information about what is being done on the global food security front. Contrary to what the lack of media coverage may imply, organizations are working to help with this crisis.
One of these organizations is the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. The organization is a partnership working to help small-scale farmers who are suffering from poverty and hunger. AGRA develops programs to increase the farm productivity and incomes of the poor while also working to protect the environment. The former Secretary-General of the United States, Koffi Annan, chairs AGRA, and some of its key supporters include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Africa’s population has the highest proportion of undernourished people in the world. Per capita food production has declined in Africa for the past 30 years and farm productivity in Africa is just one-quarter the global average. The effects of the food crisis impacts all of us, as we experienced earlier this year when prices for wheat, corn, rice and other staples doubled.
AGRA’s programs are geared toward providing small farmers with better seeds, fertilizer and access to water as well as “output” markets that ultimately allow them to make a profit on their harvests, aiming to keep surplus produce within the country or region in which they are grown. In November, AGRA launched a $2.5 million grant to support 820 rural agro-dealers in Mali who are primary contacts for seeds, fertilizers and other farm inputs that are necessary for increased productivity.
AGRA states that an estimated 995,000 Malian families will benefit from this program, growing their income by 30 percent while reducing by 30 percent the average distance farmers have to travel to access improved seed and fertilizer. The organization further notes that the Mali program is modeled on highly successful agro-dealer strengthening programs in Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya, Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria, where small holder farmers are reporting tripled food productions in areas where the program has run full circle.
Source: BecauseAction.com
