Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) – To improve African small farmers’ access to the market and increase the use of better technologies in agricultural production. These are some of the measures being taken to reach food self-sufficiency for the continent, proposed by the participants in a conference on agriculture in Africa, organized by the World Bank in Tanzania’s capital Dar-es-Salaam, where experts from 6 African nations were invited to attend.
The small farmers are suffering because they must depend only on informal markets, defined as “inefficient and very unreliable with government go-betweens.” The access to new technology in order to enhance products will allow African farmers to compete on their own markets, with the imported merchandise from more developed nations that have access to the latest technology.
Some African nations, such as Kenya, are already capable of exporting food and flowers to Europe, where they have developed a network of commercial contacts, keeping on par with the innovations and qualitative standards that are always on the rise in such a rich and sophisticated market.
In order to enhance productivity and sales, they are in need of financial aid. In Kenya, for example, the Equity Bank, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (an association whose goal is to improve productivity of African farmers and is presided by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan), and the Agricultural Department began a fund of 50 million dollars in order to allow farmers access to low-interest credit loans. The possibility of placing a petition and receiving the credit by cell phone is now becoming more widespread and this is a fundamental innovation for such vast and poorly communicated areas.
The African Development Bank (ADB) has created a 500 million dollar fund in order to finance raw materials for the continent’s farmers.
The prices have risen from 245 dollars per ton in January to 1100 dollars per ton in April. The fund is part of a series of measures being taken by the ADB to respond to the soaring prices. The ADB recently widened its portfolio of agricultural loans by 1 billion dollars, in order to contribute to food production, making it a total of 4.8 billion dollars. The Bank offered, in addition, 250 million dollars to help several countries face their most urgent financial needs. Nigeria, one of the most important African fuel manufacturers, announced their intention to use fuel income (caused by the increase in the wholesale price) in order to refinance the trust fund in support of Africa’s poorest nations.
The problem of the increase in food costs is the focus for the FAO (the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization) Conference that began today in Rome. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 3/6/2008)
