By Online Team

21^st May 2012:

US President Barack Obama has announced a $3bn plan to boost food security and farm productivity in Africa, the BBC has reported.  Quoting US officials, the BBC said the initiative is aimed at alleviating shortages as world food supplies are being stretched by rising demand in Asia’s emerging markets.

Although the G-8 Summit in Washington last week was dominated by Europe’s debt crisis and a possible Greek exit from the Eurozone, food security also featured prominently.

Food security is “…a moral imperative, it’s an economic imperative and it’s a security imperative,” Mr Obama said.  “There is no reason why Africa cannot feed itself.”

The president also said that while the summit would address Europe’s fiscal situation, it was “also important, also critical, to focus on the urgent challenge that confronts some one billion men, women and children around the world: the injustice of chronic hunger.”

The leaders of Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania were invited to attend the G-8 meeting on food security.

The head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Rajiv Shah, said earlier that the move showed the Obama administration’s commitment to boosting world food production as rising wealth in Asia drives consumption.

“By taking this new approach, we believe that it’s possible to move 50 million people out of the condition of poverty and hunger,” he told reporters.  “You cannot have stability and security as long as regions and countries and communities are deeply food-insecure.”

The US plan is aimed at increasing farming productivity in Africa.  For his part, Britain International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said, 45 leading firms, including Diageo, Unilever and Vodafone, will invest $4bn in developing African agriculture and sign up to a new code of responsible investment.

“It is shameful that one in three people in Africa go to bed desperately hungry every night,” said Mr. Mitchell. “Governments cannot tackle this challenge alone. The skills, resources and financial expertise of leading private businesses will help transform African agriculture, giving poor farmers the chance to pull themselves out of poverty, hunger and malnutrition,” said Mr Mitchell.

In recent years, food shortages have led to price rises and unrest in many import-dependent countries, including many in Africa.  END.  Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.