Title:
Two Efforts Seek to Increase Food Security in Africa
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
For the past year, the World Food Program has
operated a project to prevent hunger in twenty-one
countries in Africa. In the project, the United
Nations agency works with small farmers to grow more
and better produce. The World Food Program buys the
produce through local cooperative associations. Then
it distributes the products within the country or
area. The project works mainly with women.
Sheila Sisulu from the World Food Program says the
project aims to break a cycle that keeps people
hungry. The situation is when farmers have to sell
their produce at low prices after harvest, when
supplies are greatest. Then they have to pay high
prices to buy food for themselves during the "lean
season," when supplies are limited.
But when farmers produce more food, they can sell
more. And when they produce high-quality food, they
can get higher prices. They can also store food for
themselves, and have enough money to buy food if
they need to during the lean season.
Sheila Sisulu says the farmers are now starting to
earn profits through the project.
The Food and Agriculture Organization and the
International Fund for Agricultural Development help
the farmers choose the best seeds and fertilizers.
They also advise the farmers on the quality levels
that the World Food Program requires to buy their
produce.
Two other groups recently launched a separate effort
to increase food security in Africa. The groups are
the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and
the New Partnership for Africa's Development. They
say African governments have to increase their
investment in agriculture in order to fight problems
related to climate change.
The groups want the governments to develop programs
in seeds, soil health, policy and markets.
Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan is the
chairman of AGRA. The group's president, Namanga
Ngongi, says many African governments are not
meeting a target of spending ten percent of their
national budgets on agriculture. But he says
investment has risen from four percent of national
budgets to probably five and a half percent today.
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture
Report. You can find transcripts, podcasts and
archives of our reports at voaspecialenglish.com.
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personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
