G8 leaders pledged $20 billion in farm aid to help poor nations feed themselves, surpassing expectations on the final day of a summit that has yielded little progress on climate change and trade. The United States used the meeting of world leaders to push for a shift towards farm aid from food aid and will make $3.5 billion available to the 3-year program. But African nations reminded the rich of the need to honor past commitments. The $20 billion pledged was $5 billion more than originally floated over the three years. The head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, said: “Food aid is necessary because we have people suffering from drought, from flood, from conflicts and what they want is immediate food to eat. But if we have to feed 1 billion hungry people, we have to help them produce their own food,” he said. G8 leaders promised in Gleneagles in 2005 to increase annual aid by $50 billion by 2010, half of which was meant for African countries. But aid bodies say some G8 countries have gone back on their word, especially this year's G8 host, Italy. African leaders said they would voice their concerns. “The key message for us is to ask the G8 to live up to their commitments,” Ethiopian premier Meles Zenawi said. Besides Meles, the leaders of Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa joined their G8 counterparts to discuss food security and farming, and to push their demand for compensation for the ravages of climate change. It was not clear how much of the $20 billion was new funding and how much each country would give. The focus on agricultural investments reflects a US-led shift away from emergency aid assistance toward longer-term strategies to try to make communities more self-sufficient. Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade said Barack Obama, who will make his first visit to Africa as US president after the G8, brought a welcome new focus on African farming. Wade, who has championed efforts to increase agriculture in his country, which relies heavily on food imports, said Obama “really has the will to focus on food in Africa”. “The United States produces maize and some crops and sends it to people in famine, but the new conception is to produce these crops in Africa and not in the United States,” Wade said. But the $20 billion compares unfavorably with $13.4 billion which the G8 says it disbursed between January 2008 and July 2009 for global food security. British charity ActionAid has warned that, with one billion hungry, decisions at the G8 could “literally make the difference between life and death for millions in the developing world.”
