ROME (AFP) — Africa took centre stage at the UN food summit Wednesday as former UN chief Kofi Annan spearheaded an initiative to help small-scale farmers in the world's poorest continent.
Annan signed a partnership agreement with the United Nations' three food agencies at the summit in Rome, which is grappling with how to tackle soaring food prices worldwide.
"All the four organisations joining today have contributed significantly to bettering African agriculture," Annan, chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), told a news conference.
"By unifying our efforts we can drastically step up our support for Africa's smallholder farmers," Annan said at the three-day summit hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Of 22 countries that are at severe risk from record food and fuel costs, 19 are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a joint report by the FAO and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
AGRA is an African-led partnership working to help small-scale farmers overcome poverty and hunger, set up last year with the help of a 150 million dollar (100 million euros) start-up grant from the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
On Wednesday it joined forces with FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Programme (WFP) in an alliance that would "focus on the small-scale farmer, not run them out of business."
Annan noted that African farmers, most of them women, "are the only farmers who take all the risks. They have no financial support, no insurance.
"We want to work with them to improve their productivity" and address storage and marketing, said the former UN secretary general.
The new partners have individually "been lone voices trying to alert the world to the need for effective investments in agriculture," he said.
"Now I'm happy that we're all aware that it is serious and we accept the urgency of the problem," he added.
Humanitarian charity Oxfam spokesman Alexander Woollcombe agreed, saying: "It makes a welcome change that agriculture is getting this focus. It's really good that people are starting to listen."
The 56-year-old charity is concerned over "the extent to which poor people will actually be helped by it, but if that's the aim of it we actually welcome that," Woollcombe told AFP.
"The question with these things is always implementation," he told AFP. "There are some good ideas being discussed, but they need to be backed up with resources and political will," he said.
According to a draft declaration obtained by AFP, the assembled world leaders will vow on the FAO summit's closing day Thursday to "use all means to alleviate the suffering caused by the current crisis, stimulate food production and increase investment in agriculture."
A representative of small-scale farmers in Mozambique also sounded a note of scepticism, saying he thinks multi-national business interests may play too prominent a role in setting policy.
"The big multi-national seed and fertiliser companies are very interested in having markets in Africa (as well as) construction companies, for building new dams and infrastructure," Diamantino Nhamposa told AFP by telephone.
"AGRA was brought into Mozambique as a national kind of thing although we know it is really from the outside. ... Some of the money comes with the policy and the strategy tied to it," said Nhamposa, head of Mozambique's National Small Scale Farmers Union.
"Each African country should have its own national agricultural development policy which can be supported by international donors" and experts, he said.
For his part, Mohammed Beagovui, IFAD's director for West and Central Africa, welcomed the initiative, saying: "You cannot but make (small farmers) a priority in Africa," since they make up the bulk of the population.
The new alliance will "accelerate the process of transformation" already under way for African agriculture, he said.
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