Earth Equity News

International Community Turns to Long-Term Food Production Solutions. By Howard LaFranchi, CSM, June 16, 2008 "Convinced the global food crisis has no quick fixes, the international community is beginning to team up with agriculture experts to find long-term solutions... with a particular emphasis on Africa. Taking some cues from past successes -- especially from the first 'green revolution' in Asia -- and mixing them with new technologies, aid donors and agriculture experts are placing new emphasis on infrastructure development, efficient farm-to-market systems, and distribution of new and better seeds and fertilizers... What is needed, [says former U.N. chief Kofi Annan], are partnerships that encompass governments and international donors who can provide better technologies, infrastructure, and inputs such as seed and fertilizer. The U.S. government signaled its endorsement of such partnerships with its announcement last week of a collaborative initiative between the Bush administration's Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, or Agra. The MCC, which rewards the developing world's best-governed countries with grants to combat poverty, is responding to the food crisis by putting greater emphasis specifically on Africa's agriculture sector... 'Collaborations such as ours are essential to putting in place long-term solutions to the food crisis,' said Annan, who [is Agra's chairman and] was in Washington Friday to sign an agreement with MCC... The U.S. initiative is one example of a broader global recognition... The World Bank dedicated its latest annual report on development to... global food production --- the first time, experts note, a major international financing institution has focused on agriculture. And the EU, which with a total of about $15 billion in 2006 is the world's largest provider of development aid, recently announced that it would increase the percentage of its total assistance going to agriculture and rural development from 9 to 12.5%. 'This is a global trend in development assistance, as we see in the example of the U.S. initiative, and the European Union is taking the same path,' says Laurent Javaudin, agriculture attaché at the E.U. Commission's mission in Washington."