Feds Invest in Global Food Safety
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The federal government has announced that it will be investing $230 million into a new food security program being led by the World Bank.
Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program is designed to help boost agriculture initiatives and ensure food security in low-income countries. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made the announcement about Canada’s investment, which will join investments from the U.S., Spain, South Korea and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to make up what is so far a $900 million pool. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation alone is contributing $30 million.
In a release from Ottawa, the feds say that the program – called GAFSP for short – is a vast improvement over previous initiatives, that will “strengthen links to the private sector, provide additional and rapidly available resources for sustainable agriculture development, and ensure country ownership by linking funding to developing countries’ identified priorities and strategies.”
“Today, it is estimated that more than a billion people go to bed hungry,” Flaherty was quoted as saying. “This new Global Agriculture and Food Security Program can help change that, and I am pleased that Canada is among the first to contribute.”
Flaherty pointed out that he was “particularly encouraged that there is a role for the private sector to boost the resources available to combat hunger, and that countries in need will play a leading role in putting these new funds to their best use.”
In a release from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates was quoted as saying: “Investing in small farmers is an incredibly effective way to combat hunger and extreme poverty — history has proved it many times.
“The launch of this fund is an important step forward, but only a first step. Other countries meeting at the European, G8 and G20 summits in June, and at the U.N. Summit in September should join the four founding partners and make good on their pledges. If we all sustain focus until the job is done, hundreds of millions of people will lead better lives.”
Citing World Bank statistics, the Foundation stated that one billion people live in extreme poverty across the globe, of which three-quarters rely on agriculture in order to make a living.
