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http://allafrica.com/stories/201202062298.html
Africa: Former President Kufuor Scolds African Governments
By Laud Nartey, 6 February 2012
Former president John Agyekum Kufour has blamed the poor performance of farmers and the consequent devastating food deficit in Africa on successive African governments.
According to him, good governance and knowledge as well as the political will needed to adopt and pursue holistic and integrated agricultural, food and nutrition policies were missing.
“Lack of good governance, because our national political choices do not tend to reflect and accord the primacy, due to the agricultural sector which is still inhabited by far by the majority of our populations,” he stated.
He said lack of knowledge on the part of the impoverished and traditionally hide-bound farming communities has forced the farmers to live on subsistence agriculture and the revolution which has transformed agriculture around the world including Asia and South America has largely passed Africa by.
“Across Africa, our farmers are still scratching a living from the land by hand like their ancestors. Our farmers have not widely shared in the advances in irrigation or crop varieties which have revolutionised yields elsewhere and extension services guidance of farmers is not widespread,” he emphasised.
He noted also that without the solutions and the commitment from political leaders to put them into action, the ambitions for fairer and stable world will be a mirage.
Former President Kufour, who jointly won the World Food Prize award with the former president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last year, was speaking during the 1st West African Regional Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition workshop on the theme: Uniting West Africa Against Hunger and malnutrition in Accra this week.
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