The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, Mr Akinwumi Adesina, has appealed to the United States to back the institution’s $1.5 billion emergency food production plan which seeks to avert a looming food crisis in Africa caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Mr Adesina was part of a team that testified about global food insecurity and persisting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic before the US Senate subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs.
Senators Chris Coons (Delaware), Lyndsey Graham (South Carolina), Dick Durbin (Illinois), Chris Van Hollen (Maryland) and Roy Blunt (Missouri) also participated in the hearing.
Senator Coons, Chair of the Senate subcommittee, stressed that the US should move fast and provide sufficient funding, saying, “We should be concerned and even alarmed about the widening food security crisis that this war is causing for hundreds of millions far beyond Eastern Europe.”
On his part, Senator Graham expressed support for the establishment of a global fund for food security.
Speaking live via videoconference from Accra, Ghana, Mr Adesina said the proposed Africa Emergency Food Production Plan would result in the rapid production of 38 million tons of food across Africa over the next two years.
“The African Development Bank, with your support, is prepared to meet this new challenge and others head-on,” he said.
He explained that the plan is anchored on the provision of certified seeds of climate-adapted varieties to 20 million African farmers and with the disruption of food supplies arising from the Russia-Ukraine war, Africa faces a shortage of at least 30 million metric tons of food, especially wheat, maize, and soybeans imported from the two countries.
Speaking further, the AfDB chief said the lender would invest $1.3 billion in the plan’s implementation and called on the US to make up the funding balance.
“With US support to reduce the $200 million financing gap – we can ensure the Africa Emergency Food Production Plan’s success,” he said.
The Africa Emergency Food Production Plan is currently before the bank’s Board of Directors for approval.
Also providing testimony were Mr David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme and Ms Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Chief Executive Officer of non-governmental organization Mercy Corps.
Ms McKenna said, “A perfect storm is leading to heightened global food insecurity, worse, much worse than the previous food crises over the past decade.” She cited the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change as factors sharpening the current food insecurity.
Mr Beasley said food insecurity had already begun to rise sharply before the war. He said 135 million people were acutely food-insecure before the onset of the pandemic. “COVID comes along and that number went from 135 million to 276 million people marching toward starvation.”
Mr Adesina, then, emphasized that the African Development Bank’s food production plan would foster the production of nutritious food rather than simply calories.
“One of the things we will be supporting through this emergency food production plan is bio-fortified foods. Sorghum fortified with iron. Nutritional supplementation is important,” he said
The bank’s president also said the AfDB was setting up meetings with international fertilizer companies to discuss ways to ensure that African farmers continued to have access to such inputs.
“If we don’t solve the fertilizer problem, we cannot solve the food problem.
According to him, the Africa Emergency Food Production Plan would have a long-term impact on Africa’s food productivity.
The initiative will “drive the structural changes in agriculture, to unleash the full potential of Africa to become a breadbasket to the world.”
