Efter internettet vil det være landbruget, der bliver den næste store ting for Afrika. Det sagde Verdensbankens vicepræsident for Afrika, Obiageli Ezekwesili.
ADDIS ABABA, February 3, 2011: “Private capital, which has worked so well for Africa’s revolutions in telecom and Information and Communications Technology (ICT), will even do more in Africa’s foremost area of competitive advantage: agriculture, World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region, Obiageli Ezekwesili stressed at the Africa Union summit in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
Ezekwesilis remarks came at a forum held at the behest of the World Bank, where representatives of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Program (WFP), and the African Development Bank, exchanged ideas on how to best reinvigorate (forstærke) the partnership, coordination, and swift assistance to countries which made the response to the 2007-2008 food crisis so effective.
Stressing the potential for agriculture to bring about transformational change, World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, cited the interest shown by giant global retailers (fødevarekæder) such as the United States-based Walmart to source their food directly from smallholder farmers (småbønder).
The Bank, she explained, has kept in place the mechanisms it used to help countries tackle the 2007-2008 food crisis.
The forum agreed that African governments, private sector investors and donors need to pay close attention
* not to tip the balance against smallholder farmers compared to commercial farmers;
* not to lock women in the role of producers, while men become the “money makers” when it comes to marketing; and
*not to hurt food security and nutrition generally guaranteed by the female farmer by focusing too narrowing on large scale modern and mechanized farms owned predominantly by men.
Despite challenges from natural events including harsh drought in the Horn and East of Africa and floods in West and Southern Africa, some of the gains are making a difference.
STORINDKØB FRA SMÅBØNDER
For example, under a pilot program “Purchasing for Progress” aimed at linking African smallholder farmers to markets and consumers, the World Food Program (WFP) has sourced (opkøbt) an estimated 1 billion US dollar worth of humanitarian food supplies directly from African farmers over the last three years, WFP Deputy Executive Director Shiela Sisulu told the gathering.
Half of the purchases were from member states of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
– Purchases from Uganda and Ethiopia were a total 40 million and 50 million dollar respectively, Sisulu explained.
The forum discussed some of the key setbacks, including the introduction of price controls and food export bans; the difficulty of moving food across borders; the high costs of transport; the failure to respect global standards and quality; and the high loss (tab/svind) – estimated at 35 percent of food supplies – which occurs during the post-harvest, transport to market, storage, processing and conservation phases.
Some successful approaches, such as the use of cash vouchers (pengebeviser) to help poor families afford food during the 2007-2008 crisis are being re-tooled by WFP, which recently launched electronic vouchers.
Provided via so-called “scratch cards” (skrabekort) similar to those used to recharge credit on mobile phones, they allow WFP to pick up the amount estimated in excess of affordable grocery prices for the most needy families.
The FAO’s boss, Jacques Diouf said countries need to meet three major challenges to mitigate (lindre) what Okonjo-Iweala described as the “frightening” but real prospects that “we must learn to live with food price volatility (voldsomme udsving).”
GENKALDER SIG ROBERT MCNAMARAS TID
The FIRST, Diouf said, is to ramp up investments (in food production) beyond the estimated 22 billion dollar pledged by the G20 during their 2009 summit in Pittsburgh.
Significantly higher investments must be made if the world is to avoid the reality of the forecast made at the 2002 World Food Summit that the aim of halving world hunger by 2015 will only be met in 2150.
He called for programs that mirror those implemented by the World Bank under former President Robert McNamara which included providing irrigation, storage, farm-to-market roads, bringing about India’s Green Revolution, and working in Asia and Latin America to avoid famine.
While private sector investments are important and should be made in a responsible way, Diouf stressed that it is foremost the responsibility of developing countries to plough the most money into the sector.
– African countries must do everything to honor the commitments they made in Maputo in 2002 to raise the share of their national budgets devoted to agriculture to at least 12 percent – a feat (præstation) currently realized by only seven to eight African countries, an official from the African Development Bank, said speaking on behalf of its President Donald Kaberuka.
The SECOND issue to tackle, according to Diouf, is unfair trade, which he blamed in part on the lavish annual subsidies – 360 billion dollar in all – paid by rich countries to their farmers.
The amount, which includes 13 billion dollar in subsidies to biofuels, which diverts food into supporting transport, is way above the official development assistance (ODA) investment needs of these countries estimated at only 45 billion, according to the FAO.
MASSER AF HVEDE PÅ LAGER CONTRA PROFITJÆGERNE
The THIRD issue, according to Diouf, is to prevent unscrupulous (skrupelløse) profit seekers from exploiting lax regulations or excessive deregulation to speculation on food as a commodity just to make money.
The FAO boss noted, that with wheat stocks at 1.100 million tons – double the stock in 2008 – and oil prices not as high as they were in 2008, the current rise in food prices is at odds with (står i grel modsætning til) such fundamentals of the global food market.
Forest fires, drought, prospects of low future harvests and the ban of wheat exports in Russia, triggered unjustified panic in the global food market, Jacques Diouf concluded.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
