U.S.-AFRICA: Clinton Backs Agricultural Development

LUANDA, Aug 11 (IPS) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is using her trip to Africa to promote agricultural development as an approach to food aid which she has described as a "signature element" of the new Obama administration’s foreign policy.

"We are convinced that investing in agriculture is one of the most high-impact, cost-effective strategies available for reducing poverty and saving and improving lives," Secretary Clinton told an audience at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute in Nairobi.

Adding: "If you don't do agriculture, you don't eat, and that's the most important goal of any society."

In South Africa, Secretary Clinton said the focus should be on agricultural productivity.

Things like new irrigation techniques and drought-resistant seeds were as important as access to markets, to ensure sustainability for even the smallest farmers, she said.

The theme of the small farmer continued in Angola where Clinton witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between U.S. oil giant Chevron, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Cooperative League of the United States of America (CLUSA) focussing on supporting smallholder farmers.

"Helping small farmers in Africa is not only about giving those farmers a better life by increasing more local production of food and jobs and therefore economic development in the countries of Africa," Secretary Clinton told an audience in the Angolan capital Luanda.

"It also helps the rest of the world, because most of the arable land left in the world is on the African continent.

"Countries in Africa that are now importing food can become exporters. Countries that cannot now feed themselves will once again be able to do so."

Pre-independence Angola was a major food exporter but decades of civil war destroyed the fertile countryside leaving it littered with landmines and sent millions to seek refuge in the cities.

The Angolan government has pledged to re-launch agriculture as a way of diversifying the economy away from oil and to reduce the reliance on expensive food imports.

Millions of government dollars are being invested to set up commercial farms and create rural jobs, while NGOs and groups like USAID and CLUSA are working on a bottom-up approach targeting Angola's subsistence farmers.

Chevron and USAID cash is already funding CLUSA to carry out its $5.6 million Agriculture Development and Finance Program (Pro-Agro) which began in 2006, working with smallholder coffee and banana farmers, helping them to increase their yields and market share.

This latest MOU builds on a 2002 MOU between Chevron, USAID and others for the $56 million Angola Partnership Initiative supporting education, food security, capacity building of government institutions, and small business development in the country.

Secretary Clinton told reporters: "With the signing of this new Memorandum of Understanding, we are making a down payment on the future, the revitalisation of small- and medium-holder farming in Angola.

"It will raise the income of Angolans and turn back hunger," she added.

Secretary Clinton also stressed the significance of the type of support the partnership represented and said it represented a "new approach to development assistance" on the part of the Obama Administration.

"While we will continue to provide emergency food aid to address immediate crises," she said, "we are focused on helping countries build mechanisms that sustain progress in agriculture over the long term."

And she added that smallholder farmers were a key part of that strategy, with an emphasis on providing access to credit and financial support, linking farmers to harvest facilities and markets, and extending the benefits of research and technical assistance to increase crop quality and yields.

Of course U.S. interests are not founded on altruism alone; there is a commercial driver too, because as Clinton said, Africa is one of the few places left with land to spare.

In Angola, banana giants Chiquita and Dole Food are hoping to set up plantations in the with a view to growing for export to Europe. Earlier this year a group of U.S. businesses visited Angola to look at, among other things, opportunities for exporting agricultural equipment.

Travelling with the delegation in May was Heather Ranck, an international trade specialist from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

She said: "There is a huge amount of potential in the Angolan market for American companies, particularly as the government is driving this diversification into Agriculture right now.

"From a US point of view, it is good timing because many traditional markets for American machinery have been hit by the credit crunch and exports have ground to a halt in some places. Angola offers a new export opportunity."

(END/2009)

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