ACDI/VOCA Responds to Global Food Crisis

ACDI/VOCA President Carl Leonard called today for the formation of a Global Food Crisis Team and urged the company to “think boldly regarding how ACDI/VOCA might muster an enhanced response to the crisis.”

He said, “In a sense the food crisis is not new to ACDI/VOCA. Food shortages, high prices and inefficiency in the world food economy have been 45-year preoccupations. However, while our proficiency in agricultural development and food aid gives us uncomfortable insight into the crisis, it also may give us opportunities to help alleviate it.”

After delineating the factors causing the crisis and indicating how profound it is, Leonard acknowledged that many ACDI/VOCA projects are already effecting remedies, especially those that address the long-term challenge of increasing the food supply. But he pointed out that the quests for solutions should be companywide, since “all our projects stand to suffer as beneficiaries’ assets dwindle and they lose faith in an integrated global food economy.”

He pointed out that already ACDI/VOCA’s Kenya Maize Development Program has flexed to deal with the confluence of food crisis and political turmoil to support emergency food security. In Uganda similar adjustments are being planned.

And he ventured, “Win-win opportunities may arise,” noting that new funding and new policies that promote trade and efficiency, boost agricultural production and reduce vulnerability of the poor are obviously in order. He quoted World Bank President Zoellick, who said on April 29, “The international community needs to commit to working together to respond with policy initiatives, so that this year’s crisis doesn’t become a generation’s fact of life.”

The ACDI/VOCA food crisis team will examine such questions as

• Do we understand secondary risks associated with the crisis, e.g., instability, high-risk survival strategies, and the threat of disease?
• For staple crop production programs, are there market linkages to help get food where it is needed (i.e., WFP purchases from our producer groups)?
• Should we shift Title II programs to more direct distribution, especially where we have distribution systems in place?
• Should cash transfers and voucher systems become a new priority?
• Are short-term strategies aligned with long-term development goals?
• Should we expand our approaches oriented toward staple crops?

In addition to forming the team to plan a response and setting up a listserv, he called for the company to issue a perspective on the crisis that will contribute the critical thinking of ACDI/VOCA food security experts to the worldwide colloquy and further position ACDI/VOCA in the marketplace as an organization that can render effective interventions. Click here to view perspective.

ACDI/VOCA has worked in 145 nations in agriculture and food systems. Former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios once called the firm “the premier agricultural development NGO in the world." ACDI/VOCA builds the capacity of people to produce their own food, which is the most sustainable and cheapest method of addressing world hunger and poverty. However, it also enables poor countries to build an indigenous business, agriculture and trade capacity and participate in the integrated global food economy where it does exist. The company is a leader in value chain approaches designed to yield far-reaching and sustainable results. Its limited work in biofuels is limited to jatropha, which is not a food crop.

Since 1989, ACDI/VOCA has been a global leader in the innovative and effective management of food aid-based projects that have positive development effects. Food aid projects are designed to avoid fostering dependency and undermining commercial markets. ACDI/VOCA addresses the availability, access to and utilization of food through several mechanisms including monetization of commodities in low-income, food-deficit countries with sales proceeds being used for development activities, direct distribution of rations to vulnerable populations and use of direct funding to address food security issues among target populations.

For more information, contact Vice President of Public Relations & Communications Perry Letson.

To find out more about ACDI/VOCA's holistic approach to the current food crisis, click on the following links to learn about our work in food security, agribusiness systems and enterprise development.