Aid for foreign farmers tied to reducing hunger

WASHINGTON — An Obama administration program set up to reduce chronic hunger and poverty has contributed to rising incomes for farmers around the world and helped save millions of people from starvation, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The program, Feed the Future, was started by the agency four years ago after a rapid rise in global food prices. It has helped more than 7 million small farmers increase crop production and has provided nutritional food to 12.5 million children in countries hit hard by drought, war or poor development, the report said.

Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the report provided the first comprehensive look at the program’s effectiveness.

“We have real numbers for the first time,” Shah said, adding that the new data showed that the administration’s efforts to end extreme poverty were having some success.

The administration has made food security one of its top foreign-policy priorities and has pledged billions of dollars in aid for agricultural development to help countries sustainably grow enough food to feed their people.

Feed the Future works with U.S. universities, including Texas A&M and Kansas State, which have provided agriculture research and technical help. Private companies such as Cargill, DuPont and Wal-Mart Stores have provided new types of seeds, fertilizer and equipment to farmers.

Gregory R. Page, executive chairman of the board of the Minnesotabased Cargill, said it was essential that private companies be involved in the Feed the Future program.

“Governments and development groups have been at this for years, and it hasn’t worked,” he said. “The only way that this is going to succeed is if we treat agriculture production as a business, not as aid. Feed the Future is the perfect example of this.”

The program operates in 19 countries, mostly in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and has achieved the greatest success in Senegal, Bangladesh and Honduras, the report found.

Despite the success of Feed the Future, Gawain Kripke, director of policy and research at the international charity Oxfam, said the program is not without problems. A report by Oxfam on two Feed the Future projects in Tanzania found that not all farmers were able to participate in the programs.

Still, Kripke acknowledged that the program is making a difference.