Rusutsu, Japan
08 July 2008
Leaders from the world's largest industrial nations are promising morefood aid and agricultural assistance for Africa to help ease the impactof rising food costs. VOA White House Correspondent Scott Stearnsreports from the Group of Eight summit in Japan where somenon-governmental organizations say increasing demand for biofuels ispartly to blame for higher food prices.
G8 leaders say they are concerned that the steep rise in global food prices could push millions of people back into poverty.
Sothey have pledged more than $10 billion in food aid since thefirst of the year and are calling on other donors to join them inproviding seeds and fertilizers for the upcoming planting season.
G8leaders say they will support improvements in agriculturalinfrastructure including irrigation, transportation, storage,distribution, and quality control while assisting in the development offood security early warning systems.
At their summit on theJapanese island of Hokkaido, G8 leaders promised to work with theInternational Monetary Fund to help food-importing countries and vowedto boost investments in African agriculture to double the production ofkey food staples within ten years.
Global food prices were a bigpart of talks between G8 leaders and heads of state from South Africa,Algeria, Ethiopia, Senegal, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Ghana.
TheUnited Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says 37 countries aremost affected by rising food prices. Twenty one of them are in Africa.
CharlesAbani is with the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, a coalition ofgroups campaigning to raise living standards in the developing world.
"Familiesare forced to make choices between food and education, food and health,and this crisis really exacerbates the situation on the ground," hesaid.
Rising world food prices are the result of a number offactors including higher transportation costs, drought, and increaseddemand from a growing middle class in China and India. There is alsomore land under cultivation for biofuels, including ethanol.
Thenon-governmental organization ActionAid says biofuels are responsiblefor as much as one-third of the recent increase in food prices.ActionAid's Carol Kayira says that is bad for Africa.
"Africa isbeing earmarked as the source of biofuels in the future, that Africawould develop if they implement the biofuels or if they grow biofuels,"she said. "And for us in Africa, we are saying no. First of all, weneed more research on biofuels. Secondly, we are saying we are alreadyhaving difficulties to produce our own food to feed ourselves, so ifyou come in Africa and then you are taking out the basic resources thatwe require for food for biofuels, you are making the problem worse."
G8leaders say they will ensure that the sustainable production ofbiofuels is compatible with food security, in part, by accelerating thedevelopment of biofuels from non-food plant materials and waste.
JosephSuuna is the general secretary of the advocacy group PELUM, whichpromotes ecological land use management. He says growing demands forbiofuels in the developing world are disrupting African agriculture.
"Asa global community, irrespective of whether the immediate people whoare dying may be in Africa, this is your problem as much as it is anAfrican problem," said Sunna. "Just as a tsunami in Asia is an Africanproblem is an American problem, so is anything to do with food inAfrica."
In their statement on food security, G8 leaders vowedto form a global partnership on agriculture and food involvingdeveloping country governments, donors, the private sector, and civilsociety.
The World Bank says increases in the price of wheat,rice, and maize cost developing countries more than $320 billion lastyear. Oxfam International says food inflation has wiped out fivepercent of the Gross Domestic Product of Mozambique and Eritrea, andten percent of GDP in Senegal, Haiti, and Sierra Leone.