Maravi

Food insecurity undermines development – Machila

Food insecurity undermines development – Machila
Written by Edwin Mbulo in Livingstone
Sunday, May 24, 2009 7:16:26 AM

LIVESTOCK and fisheries minister Bradford Machila has said food insecurity undermines the development process.

And COMESA director of Investment Promotion and Private Sector Development Dr Chungu Mwila has said intra-regional trade currently stands at an estimated US$15 billion from about US $3.1 billion recorded in 2000.

During the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) planning meeting at Protea hotel in Livingstone on Thursday, Machila said the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region had great agricultural potential.

“Food insecurity undermines the overall development process in the region. It is therefore critical that ACTESA works to produce an appropriate trade and marketing agenda that will motivate our producers to become sustainable and reliable producers for huge regional market. There is huge potential for trade in the region, for instance, US$19 billion is spent by COMESA member states on food imports and only US$3 billion is spent on intra COMESA trade in all agricultural products,” he said.

He added that a number of challenges in food insecurity had been faced by the member states.

“When we look at the whole Eastern and Southern African region, with our varied agro ecological zones, it appears that we should be food secure. However, we face challenges of food insecurity year in and year out due to a number of constraints. Firstly there is the challenge of how to effectively distribute the food from surplus areas to deficit areas. Secondly, how do we create an effective Public Private Partnership that ensures that governments and the private sector become truly partners for the overall development of agriculture? Thirdly, how do we ensure our producers are able to deal with crop disease pressures and us quality planting materials? Indeed, there are many other issues that our producers face,” he said.

Machila further said despite the COMESA region being a biggest producer of cassava and banana, lack of markets had affected harvesting of the crops.

And Dr Mwila said ACTESA would build regional cross-border alliance aimed at strengthening innovative market institutions and link chronically food insecure smallholder farmers with growing national and regional markets for staple foods.

“An increasing proportion of this trade is in agricultural goods thereby providing real market benefits to the farming community. These and more benefit will emanate from COMESA customs Union and will defiantly be complemented by ACTESA,” said Dr Mwila.

Labels: ACTESA, BRADFORD MACHILA, CHUNGU MWILA, FOOD, HUNGER

posted by MrK @ 6:19 AM