Emily guides ONE’s agricultural policy strategy and blogs on agricultural development, trade and food security. Before joining the team, Emily was a senior policy adviser at Oxfam America, where she advised on policy and advocacy strategy development on international trade negotiations, the Farm Bill, agricultural development, food security and biofuels. She has also authored numerous briefing papers and articles on trade, agriculture and development.
Many thanks to ONE’s members, our collective voice has helped raise UN Appeal funding for the Horn of Africa by $1 billion and elicit another $700 million-plus in pledges. If combined and fulfilled, these pledges would more than fill the $530 million funding gap.
Business and food go hand in hand. Researching and developing new technologies that improve the quality of a seed or reduce the amount of time a farmer spends harvesting crops is largely done by the private sector. Private companies process, package, transport and market foods to all of us every day. So, there’s no question that private companies play a huge role in, if not dominate, our food supply.
Right now, we’re urging Congress to fully fund Feed the Future, a program that helps improve food security for the world’s poorest people. How does it make an impact on lives, exactly? Read George Chitosa’s story to find out…
When we first walked into the Chitosa Trading grain warehouse, it was hard to envision just what this great big empty room could do to help improve the livelihoods and food security of Malawian farmers. But Mr. George Chitosa told us not to worry -– there are a few weeks to go before the harvest. In a month, this warehouse will be piled high with maize, and the farmers that sell to him will go home happy with a good price for their maize.
Over the past year, drought has plagued much of the Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. It has been the driest year on record since 1950! The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) and Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) were able to signal this emerging weather-related crisis as early as August 2010. These initiatives have helped donors track the crisis and its impact on communities in the region. Though the crisis has not been averted, these data allowed donors to scale up and pre-position quantities of food to help meed the needs of the populations.
When we first walked into the Chitosa Trading grain warehouse, it was hard to envision just what this great big empty room could do to help improve the livelihoods and food security of Malawian farmers. But Mr. George Chitosa told us not to worry -– there are a few weeks to go before the harvest. In a month, this warehouse will be piled high with maize, and the farmers that sell to him will go home happy with a good price for their maize.
1 oz. rising oil and metal prices
1 oz. predicted 5.5 percent growth
2 oz. climbing food prices
1 oz. increasing number of people pushed into poverty
Dash of political instability and slowed progress
On Sunday in the Financial Times, Donald Kaberuka, head of the African Development Bank, said that “rising oil and food prices are combining to create a ‘Molotov cocktail’ for Africa as the continent attempts to push ahead with its recovery from the economic crisis.”
Driving down a bumpy and barely navigable road in Malawi, we arrived at the Mawango School, greeted by tons of school children with beaming smiles.
“Look at those round cheeks, beautiful smiles,” remarked Florence from the Ministry of Education who joined ONE’s site visit. “The children are happy because they have taken their porridge.” At this school feeding program, run by the World Food Programme, the 777 students at Mawango are guaranteed a bowl of porridge made from a corn-soya blend, sweetened with sugar and fortified with essential nutrients.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
