FAO’s bid to draw attention to the plight of 1 billion people in the world living in chronic hunger, though commendable, should be treated with caution. Despite the fact that 200 million children under five are malnourished - 90% of them from Africa and Asia - staging a celebrity hunger strike in the name of addressing their plight will only mask the real cause of their hunger.

Having been on a forced 'hunger strike' for a long time, Africa ought to heed Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s observation that food aid agencies lack genuine interest to end hunger and poverty in Africa. This fact is further enhanced by remarks from Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) that most of the food aid given to children in Africa and around the world has insufficient nutritional value, leaving millions of children vulnerable to disease and death.

Africa’s food problem will only be solved by Africans themselves. We must change our eating habits and revert to indigenous crops which require little or no farm inputs. We must rethink the growing of cash crops which we not only don't consume, but  their prices are dictated by buying nations. We must not lease huge tracts of land to developed nations to enable them feed their people and export the surplus to us. Instead, we ought to cultivate that land, feed our citizenry and export the rest to them.

Food aid agencies have hidden business interests based on their ideological, economic and political orientation. Food donating countries want to get rid of their food surplus; keep the aid bureaucracy functioning; mess up Africa’s food production; inculcate the mentality that Africa is unable to feed itself hence  justify intervention and land acquisition. A change of attitude, innovation and courage to provide homegrown solutions will save the continent from poverty.