A Moral Obligation

U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged that his country will continue to provide emergency aid to feed the world's hungry.  And he has enlisted the assistance of private industry to commit to helping, in setting aside $3-billion to improve agriculture.

"As president, I consider this a moral imperative.  As the wealthiest nation on Earth, I believe the United States has a moral obligation to lead the fight against hunger and malnutrition and to partner with others. We'll stay focused on clear goals - boosting farmers' incomes and over the next decade helping 50 million men, women and children lift themselves out of poverty", he promised a symposium in Washington.

Evidently 45 countries representing major corporations down to African co-operatives, have pledged investments on efforts, mostly in Africa.  Providing better seeds and storage and assisting farmers in the science of predicting climate patterns are representative of the massive effort involved.

The focus on Africa is interesting.  The simple fact is Africa has immense agrarian acreages that have never been tilled.  The continent utilizes a scant portion of its tillable land to grow crops.  This is a situation that has not escaped the notice of countries like China and Saudi Arabia.  Agreements with African governments between China and Saudi Arabia, and India, as an example, to rent land for farming are ongoing.

Those countries irrigate, plant and reap crops which they then use to feed their own populations.  African governments reap the benefit of foreign exchange and investment, but nothing of any value trickles down to their indigent populations to improve their lives.  As with most dysfunctional societies, treasury is used to purchase military arms, and the fate of the people is left in their own hands, or with western humanitarian aid groups.

True to Western idealism, the G-8 is set to make more promises, similar to the one made in 2009 of $20-billion over three years to improve food access to Africans.  President Obama's new initiative named the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition is not, he insists a substitute for aid.

"I know some have asked, in a time of austerity, whether this new alliance is just a way for governments to shift the burden onto somebody else.  I want to be clear - the answer is no.  As president, I can assure you that the United States will continue to meet our responsibilities so that even in these tough fiscal times, we will continue to make historic investments in development."

"Fifty years ago Africa was an exporter of food. There is no reason why Africa should not be feeding itself and exporting food again", said President Obama in a speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, preparatory to the G-8 meeting.

Something is missing here.  That something being, of course, colonial powers, 50 and 100 years ago, guiding African agriculture, and helping it to export the result of what was grown.  For their own needs and purposes, not for that of Africans'. And currently, left to their own devices, countries like Zimbabwe ruin the farming infrastructure left as a symbol of colonialism.

Zimbabwe, under the ruinous reign of its megalomaniac President Mugabe is no longer a major exporter of food, it cannot grow enough for its own people and starvation stalks the land as it does elsewhere in Africa.  For decades food scientists and agronomists have travelled from the West to teach Africans how best to plant, providing newly developed seeds.

And now, back to square one.  India, in contrast, is an instance of another kind of success and failure.  New varieties of higher-yielding grains, along with a mild winter has produced a record harvest, aided by the government's guarantee to farmers of a minimum support price.  Now, because India has harvested vast tonnes above their storage capacity, millions of tonnes of wheat, left out in the fields, are rotting.

India, after China, is the world's largest producer of wheat.  Even so, the government has neglected the necessity of ensuring that there are enough grain silos and warehouses to store those millions of tonnes.  Instead they're being stored in the out-of-doors, covered with plastic, vulnerable to pests and fungus, awaiting the annual monsoon season.