Sirte - The African Union (AU) must take urgent steps to reform agricultural policies on the continent, according to an international agency, Oxfam.
"The food and hunger crisis is set to increase in the face of the global economic and climate crisis," the agency said recently, at the launch of its new report in Sirte, Libya, on the sidelines of the AU Executive Council meeting.
"The economic collapse was changing the way people suffer from hunger - food is available but it simply costs too much for millions of people to afford," said Lamine Ndiaye, head of Oxfam's Pan African programme for economic justice.
Speaking to BuaNews, Mr Ndiaye said the AU leaders meeting had to commit to more investment in small scale African agriculture to break the current dependency on the global market.
"More and wiser investment in small scale agriculture is needed," Mr Ndiyane said, adding that investment was part of a long term solution to the food, financial and climate crises.
The report titled "Investing on Poor Farmers Pays: How to Invest in Agriculture" warns that under-investment and bad agricultural policies by African governments and international donors, have played a role in exacerbating chronic poverty and hunger in millions of Africans.
The report also revealed that 60 percent of all Africans who live in rural agricultural areas as well as the urban poor were affected by the food crisis.
The report further argued that additional investment must also be spent wisely and that marginalised and improvised areas must be given support.
"Rural development is badly needed in areas without schools and healthcare and women usually play a vital role in agriculture yet the governments tend not to include them ... this needs to change," he said.
In this regard, Mr Ndiaye said the summit must mark a new era for African farmers.
He said small scale agriculture was the "backbone of most African economies and the largest contributor of GDP," adding that investment in agriculture went hand in hand with addressing the marginalised sectors of the African society.
Africa currently faces challenges in its pursuit of food security, this made difficult by an over dependence on aid and internal rules on trade and agricultural production.
The continent is also currently facing an increasing gap between production and consumption of food products, which was up from $16 billion in 1990-92 to $25 billion in 2004.
Meanwhile, the African Ministers renewed their commitment to a Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).
More than 200 participants, including African Ministers of agriculture, regional economic communities, civil society organisations development partners and farmers attended the event in Sirte.
The outcomes of the CAADP Day fed into the agenda of the Heads of State at the 13th Session of the Assembly.
CAADP, which is a programme of the AU's New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), provided the participants with an opportunity to engage each other on progress and challenges faced to date in the implementation of CAADP.
Speaking on behalf of the host country the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya's Abubakar Al Man Souri said the country's Minister of Agriculture highlighted the relevance of value- addition and production in up-scaling agriculture in Africa.
"We have to increase investments and intra-African trade in agriculture if we are going to achieve sustainable development in Africa," he added.
In his remarks to the participants, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, the Chief Executive Officer of NEPAD, reiterated the relevance of CAADP to Africa before going on to highlight the role of the private sector in agriculture.
"We also need to boost our regional and domestic markets through the development of policy reforms, institutional innovations and infrastructure investments that can help to raise productivity and profitability in the agricultural sector," said Dr Mayaki.
