Getting Excited about Ag!

Apr 21st, 2010 12:57 PM UTC
By Beth Adler

Hello ONE members. Not that something as crucial to poverty alleviation as agriculture could have slipped your minds, but in case it has, I want to encourage you to browse our blog and website to re-familiarize yourself. Why? Because this week there is a series of exciting agriculture and food security events that you’re going to be reading about here on the blog. These events, three of which are described below, are essential to maintaining the momentum around agriculture and food security—with an eye towards helping African countries feed themselves and increase their incomes, of course!

Tomorrow morning, there will be a Senate hearing about a bipartisan effort to pass the Global Food Security Act. You might also know it as the Lugar-Casey bill, introduced by (you guessed it) Senators Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Robert Casey (D-Penn.). The hearing will discuss the existing legislation and revisions to it which are a collaborative effort between the Senators, Representative McCollum who introduced the House counterpart bill, the Administration (including those agencies focused on the U.S. Global Food Security Initiative like the State Department and USAID), and with input from a large proportion of the NGO community. Keep an eye on the blog for posts about the content of the legislation and the next steps ONE will be taking to get it passed.

The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) at the World Bank will also be launched tomorrow. What you might not get from the cumbersome acronym is that this is actually a multi-donor trust fund that will serve as a mechanism to provide funding for developing countries’ vetted agriculture plans. While the GAFSP platform is housed at the World Bank, the program is actually independently governed and does not fund World Bank priorities. GAFSP was called for as part of last September’s G20 statement on food security. We’ll have a read-out from the launch event and additional fund details for you.

In Johannesburg, beginning tomorrow, there is Partnership Platform meeting for the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). CAADP is an African-led initiative through which African governments have pledged to commit 10% of national budgets to agriculture and achieve agricultural growth rates of 6% or higher. Countries undertake a multi-step process that includes engaging a variety of stakeholders to create a country plan for achieving these goals. Partnership Platforms are held every six months to evaluate progress and country-level experiences in implementing the CAADP process. ONE’s own Emily Alpert will be on the ground in Johannesburg and will be bringing you updates from there.

If you’re looking for a good place you start your learning, you can review our Food Security in Focus series. It has policy posts and some great partner content from the field. You can also check out our Agriculture issue page.

Some folks think that agriculture and food security are difficult to get excited about—but what could be more important than helping communities become self sustaining?

TAGS: Agriculture, Policy News