Africans must unite to demand an immediate end to Western trade barriers that are worsening the impact of a global food crisis on the world's poorest continent, Kenya said on Thursday. Experts say poor harvests, high fuel costs and rising demand, especially from fast-growing Asian countries, mean one billion people worldwide are now threatened by hunger. Kenyan Agriculture Minister William Ruto said he would mobilise African governments to bring down barriers “imposed by our big brothers in the developed nations to deny us their markets while they enjoy unfettered access” to Africa. “We intend to pitch tent at the African Union summit, and at the G8,” he told delegates at a regional meeting of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Nairobi. Commodity prices have doubled over the last couple of years and the World Bank says that 100 million people risk joining the 850 million already going hungry. The FAO says food output must double by 2050 to meet surging demand. Ruto said African countries desperately needed to reduce dependence on food imports, and to expand irrigation schemes that reach far fewer farmers than anywhere else in the world. But he said factors often cited in the crisis, like climate change and a debate over biofuels, were just “excuses” given the years of neglect shown to farming on the continent. “The real bottom line is that for the last 30 years, national governments, development partners, Bretton Woods institutions and the private sector have under-invested in agriculture,” Ruto said.
