The 14th Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union decided that within a period of five years, Africa must be able to feed itself and that after that period, no child in Africa should die of hunger, starvation or malnutrition.

To realize the decision, I am proposing a new strategic partnership for the “The African Food Basket: Innovations, Interventions and Strategic Partnerships” that will initially be implemented in Africa, with potential to extend to other developing nations. 

The African Food Basket is a focused approach that highlights agriculture and food security as the springboard for growth supported by strategic transport infrastructures, energy development, Information Communication Technology (ICT) and climate change mitigation. It calls for Africa and cooperating partners to focus on improving agriculture and food security through innovative interventions that comprise subsidies, increased budgetary allocations, private sector investment and affordable information and communications technology. It could also form the basis for Africa to unlock resources from the $22 billion that the G8 made available in the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative.

The establishment of an ad-hoc body of 17 countries in Africa called the Strategic Group of Seventeen (SG17) on the African Food Basket would spearhead and monitor the process towards turning Africa into a food basket. Members to the group would be countries with track records of achievement in promoting agriculture and food security. Initially these are: Senegal, South Africa, Egypt, Sudan, Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Ethiopia, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Cameroon, Mozambique and Mali.

The mandate of the SG17 would be to:

• Review the progress and co-ordinate strategies in the implementation of the AU decisions on agriculture and food security and other initiative in this field and to design the best methods for achieving food security for all African countries within the period of five years;

•Review the L’Aquila Joint Statement on Global Food Security adopted by the G8 countries and propose concrete actions aimed at assisting African Countries to source funds for the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative to develop viable agriculture so as to achieve food security and fight hunger, starvation and malnutrition;

•Liaise with the G8 governments and their bilateral and multilateral institutions to develop modus operandi for ensuring how developed countries can assist African countries to design new and best practices for enhancing agricultural development and for achieving food security for Africa and the rest of the world.

The new partnerships should seriously consider introducing subsidies for African smallholder farmers to enable them produce beyond subsistence. Such subsidies would be directed towards the purchase of fertilizers, improved seeds, pesticides, tractors and irrigation equipment, extension services, and marketing.

The African Food Basket will enhance the realization of Africa Green Revolution through increased productivity and production. This will be sustainable through efficient utilization of land and water resources for irrigation, increased use of best soil fertility management technologies, increased access to farm inputs, mitigation against climate change, use of improved seed for drought tolerance, improvement of storage facilities to reduce post-harvest food loss (estimated at 40 percent compared with less than 1 percent in Europe, North America and South East Asia), value addition and marketing systems for agriculture products.

The next important component should be to determine the staple food crops grown in different African countries and create reliable data banks through the use of information and communications technology. We should encourage local farmers and investors from other African countries to grow any staple food crops for export to countries where these are needed.

The adverse impact of climate change poses serious challenges for African agriculture and food security. A new strategic partnership is needed to introduce “green belts” along Africa’s perennial rivers and lake basins. These would provide new arable lands for growing a variety of food and cash crops.For this to happen, there is need to increase investment in agriculture through budgetary allocation and funding from development partners.

Africa must combat shortages of rainfall by embarking on extensive national or regional irrigational programmes and through increased investment in water development for irrigation farming and extensive reforestation.

The African Food Basket programmes should be supported by efficient transport infrastructure in order to transport food more efficiently and cheaply from surplus to deficit countries. The AU Commission and the Regional Economic Commissions have been working towards developing and implementing a joint and robust program on transport and infrastructure development encompassing air, road, rail, inland waterways, maritime transport and ports. Malawi is pioneering the development of its World inland port connecting to the Indian Ocean that will serve Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Burundi. Measures should also be devised to address congestion at port terminals around Africa for transit goods for landlocked countries.

African governments have agreed to increase investment in ICT. There is, therefore, need for Africa to create a comprehensive database on agriculture for countries and regions to share information and technologies. African countries ought to enhance and strengthen national institutions that deal with monitoring natural disasters and changes in the environment.

The high levels of food and nutrition insecurity in Africa are unacceptable. This is Africa’s opportunity to take out insurance to secure Africa’s future. Time for rhetoric has gone. It is time for action to eliminate hunger and malnutrition. It is time for action to increase access to complementary meals. It is time for action to halve the numbers of people living with vitamin and mineral deficiencies. 

Our people expect us to resolve issues of hunger and poverty once and for all within our lifetime. Posterity will judge us harshly if we do not take action now. If not us, then who? If not now, when?

By H.E. Professor Bingu Wa Mutharika,

President of The Republic of Malawi.