US food and agriculture priorities should be focused on small farmers, particularly the small farmers who make up 600 million starving people in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. That is the opinion of nearly 11 hundred US adults, and nearly 200 Members of Congress, the executive branch, corporations, and both governmental and non-governmental organizations involved with international development projects. And why should the US help fund more than $8 billion over 10 years to do that, you ask?

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which has an agricultural leadership group composed of some potent thinkers, pushed Congress toward improvements in its international trade philosophy during Farm Bill debate. Now the group has issued a lengthy report on the challenges that the global food crisis presents to the developed nations of the world. The authors include a former Secretary of Agriculture, former under Secretary of State, several members with Congressional resumes, the head of the UN’s World Food Program, several noted academics, and several heads of global non-governmental organizations. It was chaired by agricultural economist Dr. Robert Thompson of the University of Illinois.

The group’s survey found concern for the hundreds of millions who live on less than $1 per day and depend on subsistence farming for their needs, all in the wake of declining resources for agricultural research and the need for another “Green Revolution.” Such an initiative is defined by the group as stimulating “agricultural productivity through agricultural education and extension, local agricultural research, and rural infrastructure so the rural poor and hungry can feed themselves and help support growing populations under increasingly challenging climate conditions.” And they say if America takes the initiative, then other nations will follow. Beyond empathy and compassion for the suffering, the authors of the study say the US “diplomatic, economic, cultural, and security interests will increasingly be compromised if our government does not begin immediately to change its policy posture toward the rural agricultural crisis.” The roadmap includes five policy recommendations and 21 specific actions, some of which have no cost, and other which have costs associated with them.

The major recommendations include:
1. Increase support for agricultural education and extension at all levels in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
2. Increase support for agricultural research in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
3. Increase support for rural and agricultural infrastructure, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.
4. Improve the national and international institutions that deliver agricultural development assistance.
5. Improve U.S. policies currently seen as harmful to agricultural development abroad.

How is all of this going to be done? The proposal calls for foreign students to come to the US for education that can be taken back to their homes, where extension-style networks can spread the word about improvements in crop cultivation and livestock husbandry. US universities would share their research knowledge with universities in other parts of the world. And an agricultural “Peace Corps” would be established to assist local volunteers with their training. US ag scientists would have larger financial grants to conduct research that would be applicable on the ground in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The US cost would be $8.6 billion of the global $21.8 billion cost.

Dr. Thompson’s group anticipates a good reception from US political leadership, since the general concepts were part of the platforms of both presidential candidates in the 2008 election. And the report adds, “Among the public, 77 percent agree that “addressing global poverty by helping improve the productivity of poor farmers in developing countries” is an important policy priority and a very important way for the United States to improve its current standing in the world.”

Summary:
The US government is urged to provide leadership to a $22 billion global program that will increase agricultural research, train volunteers, and educate subsistence farmers in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The US would pay about 40% of the cost in an effort to protect US diplomatic, cultural, economic, and security interests in the world. Additionally, the World Bank and other nations would contribute to the program designed to solve daily hunger problems for nearly one billion people.