The Associated Press today reports on the UN’s efforts to help African farmers by buying up crops. They report that “the U.N.’s World Food Program will spend $1 billion buying food for the hungry this year, up $230 million from 2007.”

Approximately 350,000 African farmers will benefit from this new policy.

Excerpts below, full piece here

Now the [United Nations’ World Food Program] is trying to reach beyond simply handing out sacks of Western grain to help feed emaciated children. It wants to stimulate farmers like Maritim to produce more — and replace those shipments from U.S. and other agribusinesses — by providing a reliable market for their local crops.

The WFP is mounting this new effort in 21 countries, mostly in Africa, against the backdrop of a global food crisis with many causes, among them Africa’s long-running failure to feed itself. But experts say still more will be needed for a turnaround in African agriculture.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where food production per person has declined. Problems created by decades of underinvestment in agriculture and in roads and other infrastructure have been compounded by environmental degradation and rapidly growing populations. Of 34 nations the U.N. says are currently facing food emergencies, 21 are in Africa.

-Chris Scott