Kenya: MPs Call for Increased Investment in Agriculture
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Nation (Nairobi)
28 August 2008
Posted to the web 28 August 2008
Alphonce Shiundu
Nairobi
The Parliamentary forum on poverty, sustainable development and Aid effectiveness meeting in Nairobi has called for increased investment in Agriculture to ensure food security on the continent.
At a meeting in Nairobi's Windsor Hotel yesterday, the MPs called for a review of existing treaties governing international trade to "allow African farmers to compete effectively with those from the North."
Currently, food products in Europe are far much cheaper than those in Africa because of the huge subsidies that the governments in developed countries give to the farmers, the MPs said.
Muhoroni MP Ayiecho Olweny, the only Kenyan MP who attended the three day conference, called on the Government to support farmers to cushion them against the unfair competition from foreign products.
"There is no way we are going to have food security, with the current trade imbalance between the West and Africa."
The MPs called for increased funds to Agriculture in order to sustain and improve agricultural production.
The African Union recommends that 10 percent of the national budget be reserved for Agriculture and rural development.
However, the MPs did not back down from the proposal by Foreign Affairs minister to shun foreign aid.
They instead said that parliament was important in "effective aid delivery", and this should be taken into account when the Paris Declaration is revised in 2010.
Ms Eudia Kwizera, an MP from Uganda, also urged African leaders to ensure that food production is improved alongside processing and marketing.
This, Ms Kwizera said, would ensure that farmers are able to make money from their efforts, and not as is the case now where "the little they make goes to school fees and medicine."
Relevant Links
The meeting concluded that African MPs should educate their constituents on the "basic facts" of climate change. The MPs were also asked to lobby for policies that will help in the fight against global warming.
Read comments. Write your own.
|
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Make allAfrica.com your home page
|
RSS Feed
Sign up for FREE daily 'top headlines' by email >> | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | My Account | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
