African leaders at UN call for agricultural investment to replace food aid

Investments in the agriculture of developing countries should replace food aid as part of the reforms needed to face the challenges of this century, African presidents told the General Assembly on the second day of its annual high-level debate today.

“We can no longer continue to apply 20th century solutions to the more complex problems of the 21st century,” Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said. “The moment has therefore arrived for an in-depth reform of the mechanism of cooperation for development.”

President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso said the crisis of soaring food prices showed the irrelevance of current agricultural policies and the fragility of the system of production and trade.

Meanwhile, Mozambican President Emilio Guebuza highlighted the importance of global cooperation to enhance agricultural productivity in developing countries by improving access to inputs and boosting investment in infrastructure to increase market access.

For his part, President Bingu Wa Mutharika of Malawi pointed to the detrimental impacts of severe climate changes on food production, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, lamenting that little concrete international action has been taken on the issue.

Mr. Wade advocated replacing financing measures that involved long and complicated procedures with investments based on direct assistance to beneficiaries, putting equipment, other agricultural input, and technical training at their disposal.

“In contrast to traditional financing, this innovative partnership offers an immediate and credible response to the food crisis, the rural exodus and the troubling phenomenon of illegal immigration,” he said.

He assailed the agricultural subsidies in rich countries, which “continue to poison international trade and seriously afflict the economy of developing countries, particularly in Africa.”

Mr. Compaoré called for massive investment in rural areas, greater control of water and a more efficient distribution of seeds and fertilizers, citing a decrease in recent years both in the volume and effectiveness of development aid.

He also called for international help in combating drug trafficking and the effects of climate change and environmental degradation.

Mozambique’s President said the causes of the current global food crisis are myriad, and that countries must join forces to help poorer nations make the leap from “their current subsistence farming into commercial agriculture.”

Mr. Guebuza noted that his country is home to natural resources that are favourable to mixed-farming.

“However, the shortage of financial resources and the weak [banking network] in the rural zones, associated with the lack of infrastructures and technology to secure the development of a commercial agriculture, have not allowed us to scale up our production to the levels that could meet the food needs of our population,” he said.

Mr. Mutharika, the Malawian leader, said that food production has been affected by climate events such as hurricanes, floods, droughts and desertification.

“The high dependence on rain-fed agriculture, especially in developing sub-Saharan countries, has also placed such nations at the mercy of the vagaries of nature,” he said.

Characterizing global food insecurity as a “collective challenge,” he called on the international community to increase investment in agriculture, especially food production.

President Pedro Rodrigues Verona Pires of Cape Verde also underlined the need to boost agricultural production. “The food crisis has endangered hundreds of millions of people,” he told the Assembly. “It is clear that urgent action is needed to guarantee greater agricultural production able to satisfy present and future needs.

“This goal requires the promotion of agricultural policies that are consistent with the needs of the situation, the participation of rich and technologically advanced states as well as the technical support of international organizations.

“It demands that attention be paid to modernization, increased production and agricultural productivity in the affected countries and regions,” he added, citing his own country and Africa at large.

Ghana’s President John Agyekum Kufuor said the various forms of economic and other assistance to developing countries need to better coordinated if the globally agreed targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are all to be achieved on time.

“The whole idea of aid is to empower beneficiary countries to stand on their own feet to become effective partners in the global market, from which neither the rich nor poor countries can abstain, given the increasing inter-dependence of the world,” he said.