Food security: "African govts need $600bn investment"

11 March 2010, ThisDay
URL: http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=168134

Lagos:  The Director, Rural Infrastructure and Agro-industries Division, United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Mr. Geoffrey Mrema yesterday said that Sub Saharan African countries needed to invest USD600 billion  on yearly basis in agricultural post production activities  for economic growth and food security in their various countries between now and 2050.

This, however, will be in addition to what the International Agencies will give as support. “If we look we at the projections and studies done by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) for the whole of African, we have now projected that from this year till 2050 African countries and governments will need to invest USD15 billion per annum in Post Production Activities in Agriculture, Processing, rural infrastructure to mechanisation into their economies," he said a the Technical Session of the High Level Conference on Develop-ment of Agribusiness and Agro-industries in Africa in Abuja.

The FAO expert, who spoke on behalf of African Development Bank (AfDB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Economic Commission for Agriculture (UNECA), and the United Nations International Development Organization (UNIDO) said the five various international bodies provide the needed technical support, logistics and help in mobilisation of fund for agricultural development in the continent.

Mrema said that the five International Agencies are convinced that the African agribusiness and agro-industries initiative will play a critical role in promoting the agricultural led economic growth and social development that Africa is so well positioned to achieve.   He said the framework of the 3ADI capitalises on the positive economic, social and political forces that are prompting a renewed drive for growth and development in Africa.

These forces, according to him, include the potential offered by the valued foodstuffs and the rapid rates of urbanization on the continent among others. He added that the 3ADI is consistent with the emerging consensus in Africa that if agriculture is to be the main sector to stimulate economic growth then investments should go beyond improvements in on-farm productivity to also cover agribusiness and agro-industrial development

Minister of Commerce and Industry, Chief Achike Udenwa said in a remark that the High Level Conference convened on the auspices of the African Union to chart the way forward for the development of agribusiness and agro-industries in Africa will build on the recommendations of the Global Agro-industries Forum (GAIF) hosted in India in April 2008.