Canada
Helping World’s Poor Through Agricultural Assistance
By
Gurbax Malhi, M.P.
Key
to the economic growth and poverty reduction in many of the world’s
poorest countries is agriculture. Fully three quarters of the world’s
poorest people live in rural areas, and many of them are farmers. To
address rural poverty, we must support agriculture.
Canada
is making a real difference in the world by promoting sustainable rural
development. The Liberal
government has made agriculture central to Canada’s foreign aid efforts
in order to help address food insecurity and hunger.
Last
month, we announced $33 million in new investments to strengthen the
quality, safety and marketability of agriculture and food products in
developing countries.
Investments
will be made in the following areas:
-
$17 million for the Food and Agricultural Products Quality Development Project in Vietnam. This initiative will improve the quality of agriculture and food products which, in turn, will have an impact on incomes in the country's rural areas;
-
$13.3 million to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a strategic alliance of members, partners and international agricultural centres that mobilizes science to benefit the poor, focusing on food security and private-sector development; and
-
$3 million for improving the quality, value and profitability of animal and crop products in the province of Soc Trang, Vietnam.
Canada
has also been an ardent supporter of the World Agroforestry Centre’s
fertilizer tree project in South Africa. As fertilizers are too costly for
Africa’s rural poor, fertilizer trees, which capture nitrogen from air
and transfer it to the soil, helps to restore depleted soil and boost crop
productivity.
To
date, the project has made technological advances available in soil
fertility, fodder, firewood, fencing, fruit production and medicinal
plants to more than 400,000 farmers in the region. It
has meant that farmers who once went hungry can now feed their families,
and even produce surpluses.
The
project now focuses on getting more farm families to adopt agro-forestry
innovations such as fertilizer trees. This initiative could improve the
well-being of an estimated 13 million low-income farm households in
Southern Africa – especially in countries like Malawi, Mozambique,
Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe – within 10 years.
