CardiovascularEU Food Facility Grant To Increase Farmers' Productivity
Small-scale farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America are
to
receive a productivity boost through United Nations World Food
Programme
(WFP) projects supported by a donation of more than 34 million Euros from
the
European Union"s (EU) Food Facility.
"The European Union has recognised that one of the best ways to make
sure
people have access to food is to help small farmers increase
production.
That way, they can feed their families and increase availability of food
on
their local markets," said Gemmo Lodesani, Director of WFP"s liaison
office
in Brussels. More than 2 million people, many of them children
and
vulnerable adults, will benefit from the food generated by five
WFP
programmes.
The funding for operations in Bolivia, Guatemala, Senegal, Nepal and
the
Philippines will help poor farmers - most of them women - to produce
food
more efficiently through programmes such as collective farming and
crop
diversification. In some communities, WFP will provide food in exchange
for
work to improve irrigation and flood resistance or early warning schemes
to
mitigate the impact of flood or drought.
These food security projects come under an allocation from a €1 billion
EU
Food Facility and will be carried out in coordination with WFP"s
sister
agencies the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the
International
Fund for Agricultural Development. They are designed to respond to
the
growing food security problems faced by many developing countries.
The allocations include: Bolivia (€1.8 million); Guatemala (€6.3
million);
Senegal (€10.9 million); Nepal (€9 million); and Philippines
(€6.4
million). In July, the EU also confirmed a €3.5 million contribution
to
WFP"s activities in Liberia under the EU Food Facility fund.
World Food
Programme