Arthur Greene
Global agriculture has its work cut out for it. It must strive to end world hunger and feed a growing global population, all while fighting the climate crisis.
But Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, says that it can be achieved for only R500 billion a year.
“The world has the resources to end hunger,” Adesina said in a message on the first day of the United Nations Food Systems Summit, which is being held this week in New York, USA.
The summit has brought together thousands of world leaders, food producers, researchers, young people and indigenous people to work together to end hunger by 2030.
UN Secretary General António Guterres opened the summit by saying that its participants represented “energy, ideas and the willingness to create new partnerships.”
Adesina addressed the summit later in the day.
“The $33-billion per year required to free the world of hunger is just 0.12% of $27 trillion that the world has deployed as stimulus to address the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
On this continent, more people have died of hunger than of Covid-19 since the pandemic began.
Adesina highlighted that 246 million people on this continent go to bed daily without enough food, while the growth of 59 million children has been stunted because of malnutrition.
He described these figures as “morally and socially unacceptable.”
He said that achieving food security for the entirety of Africa requires prioritising technologies, climate and financing.
The African Development Bank’s Feed Africa Strategy has so far provided 11 million farmers across 29 African countries with proven agricultural technologies for food security.
Food production has expanded by 12 million metric tons while saving $814-million worth of food imports.
“We are well on our way to achieving our target of reaching 40 million farmers with modern and climate-resilient technologies in the next five years,” Adesina added.
Image source: @NewTimesRwanda
