Perpetual Hunger Blamed on Poor Policies
SMALL scale farmers from southern and eastern Africa have attributed regular food shortages in the region to ineffective governments' policies that fail to address pertinent issues in the sector.
They have accused the governments of neglecting agriculture, citing failure by many states to allocate 10 percent of their national budgets to finance the agricultural sector.
Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF) and National Network of Small Scale Farmers Groups in Tanzania (MVIWATA) meeting in Morogoro over the weekend, farmers decried state negligence and poor policies that impede their access to lucrative markets.
State neglect of small scale farmers who are the main producers have greatly contributed
to the food crisis facing the larger eastern Africa," ESAFF Regional Coordinator Joe Mzinga said, noting that the two organisations believed that it was due to failure of food laws and policies that put the whole region in unbearable pain.
He said the food scarcity was further aggravated by rising inflation that has made life difficult for common people as prices escalate.
"State neglect of small scale farmers who are the main producers have greatly contributed to the food crisis facing the larger eastern Africa.
Calling on governments to summon emergency parliamentary sessions to discuss the worsening food situation, Mzinga supported Oxfam International's estimates which put the number of those at risk at over 12 million people.
He warned that the situation is likely to worsen if mitigation measures are not taken without further delays.
"Governments should immediately fulfill Maputo Declaration to top up agriculture budget to 10 percent of national budgets. National assemblies' should hold emergency sessions, and force this to be done," The ESAFF Regional Coordinator argued.
While commending Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa for responding to a recent call by United Nations to member states to contribute 2.5 billion US dollars needed to address the Horn of African famine crisis, the forum said funds are still insufficient.
ESAFF Chairperson, Moses Shaha urged governments in the region to focus on small scale farmers who produce the bulk of food and cash crops supporting the economy other than large scale foreign investors.
"Governments must regulate agribusiness instead of offering tax breaks for ecological plunder masquerading as economic development," argued Mr. Shaha.
Shaha also called on regional blocs such as Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Southern Africa Development Community and East African Community to sign and domesticate CAADP COMPACT as Economic Community of West African States has done.
"CAADP programme implementation should involve small scale farmers, our opinion and observations should be taken into account to realize sustainable agro-ecological agriculture development which is meaningful to Africa. All these initiatives must widely inform and include opinions of the real practitioners of small scale crop, livestock and fish production," the ESAFF Chairman argued.
The Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) is an African-led initiative to reduce poverty and improve food security.
CAADP aims to help African countries reach a higher path of economic growth through agriculture-led development.
It is part of the Maputo Declaration which demands that all African governments spending on agriculture increase to 10 percent of their total annual budgets with targeted annual growth of 6 percent by 2015.
The meeting was attended by representatives of small scale farmers from Burundi, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
