U.N. moves to lift up African farmers

'Ongoing poor policy'
Raj Patel, author of "Stuffed and Starved," a book charting trends in the global food industry, described the WFP initiative as "a Band-Aid to long-term development policies that show no sign of being changed."

"The U.S. food aid program assigns $2 billion every year to food aid, which dwarfs the $76 million in this project," he said. "It's a sorry time when philanthropists have to come in to prevent something caused by ongoing poor policy that can and should be fixed not by charity but by politics."

Some worry the initiative could have unintended consequences.

"Who owns the 'better' seeds that farmers will be encouraged to plant?" asked Kenyan economist James Shikwati. "Will Africans be encouraged to develop their indigenous seeds or will those vanish?"

Selected seed strains can greatly increase a farmer's crop. Yet some say patented, modified seeds from northern agribusinesses are designed to flourish only with a specific type of fertilizer or pesticide that small farmers cannot afford. Some seeds do not reproduce themselves, forcing planters to pay for more expensive patented seeds each season.

The problems of trade and aid policies are exacerbated by the international banking meltdown, said Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.

Investors drive up prices
As the credit crisis unfolded in recent years, jittery investors switched money from banking and real estate to such commodities as grain and fertilizer, driving up prices.

"The whole damn house of cards is so fragile, all you need is one jolt ... the whole thing starts toppling," Garrett said. "There are no instruments to solve these problems on a global scale. International institutions are not up to the job and (are) preoccupied with the banking crisis."

Perhaps the first change, Shikwati suggests, should not be in an air-conditioned boardroom but in the attitudes of Africans on the streets, who often see farmers as uneducated peasants, not businessmen.

"We have to start valuing agriculture, paying attention to it, educating people about it, investing in it to make money instead of just to survive," he said.

Both Maritim, who did a secretarial course, and her husband, who studied mechanics, would rather have steady jobs than work as farmers.

"Being in the office is better than in the hot sun," she said. But if the WFP project provides enough to feed and clothe her children, she says. "That is the best of all."

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