Nairobi — The international community has committed Sh736 billion ($11.5 billion) to end the food crisis.
Food and Agriculture Organisation director-general Jacques Diouf said the UN agency had resolved that the food crisis needed to be addressed once and for all. He appealed to countries with land and water resources to partner with those having technology, management capability as well as financial resources to double food production for the world.
Dr Diouf said the world should target to feed nine billion people by 2050. He was speaking at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on arrival for the inauguration of the ongoing FAO conference at Gigiri on Thursday. President Mwai Kibaki will officially open the session. The 25th FAO conference in Nairobi comes shortly after a similar one in Rome addressing the food crisis and before the Heads of State summit to be held in Egypt at the end of the month.
Restrictive
"That way we will avoid what happened recently where some countries took restrictive measures with a view to avoid higher food prices in their internal market and satisfy their citizens," said Dr Diouf, who is serving a third six-year term. He maintained that Africa has the potential to produce enough food not only to feed itself but the entire world, citing lack of exploitation of the available resources as the continent's major undoing.
"In the 1970s Africa used to be a net exporter of food. We have the land and we have water. Today only a paltry seven per cent of the land is under irrigation while four per cent is in sub-Saharan Africa. Compared to Asia which has 58 per cent of its land under irrigation, Africa is lagging behind," said Dr Diouf.
Kenya's minister for Water Charity Ngilu, is already appealing for more funds, to the tune of Sh10 billion, for irrigation to increase production in agriculture.
Dr Diouf told African countries not to let the vagaries of weather and climate to determine their realisation of surplus production.
The conference chairman, Mr William Ruto, who is also the Agriculture minister, received Dr Diouf at the airport. Mr Ruto assured the FAO boss that Kenya was committed to addressing the food crisis once and for all. "Kenya will play its rightful role in achieving what will be arrived at during the current FAO conference. We are concerned about the soaring food prices and the riots we recently witnessed across the world," the minister said.
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As Dr. Diouf points out, Africa has enormous land resources. Water is more problematic. There is a very large part of Africa that is dry and getting drier. A significant contributor to this drying process, and to the failure of much existing irrigation, is the enormous infestation of aquatic weeds in your lakes and streams. Water Hyacinth, water lettuce, water fern, Typha (my favorite - it is a GREAT crop), Phragmites and other weeds clog your rivers and reservoirs, causing flooding and aggravating drought. The huge infestation of Typha in what used to be Lake Chad is one of the dessicating influences expanding the Sahara southward. All of these weeds can be made into fuel. Some of them can be made into food. Just their clearance would free up a great deal of water for your use. Their harvest would be probably be profitable even separated from the value of their clearance, and certainly in combination. The environmental side effects would include a reduction in malaria. Harvest these nuisances. Eat what is fit for human consumption, and make the rest into ethanol.