New efforts to end hunger in Africa are not targeting low-cost, sustainable enhancements to farming, such as agroforestry, but focusing on corporate-driven large-scale agribusiness, argues an article in Pambazuka News.

The article provides a snapshot history of food production and supply policy and monitoring, and outlines how preventing hunger must take into consideration access rather than just focus on food supply.

“Combating household food insecurity involves more than just increasing food production,” says the article. “A food security approach that is sensitive to issues of access targets the poorest of the poor who are habitually the most food insecure”.

Interventions such as agroforestry, intercropping and soil conservation might be more cost-effective and sustainable but the new green revolution on the continent is pushing a capital-intensive approach across agriculture, supply chains and international markets, involving farming with intensive, and often expensive, inorganic fertilizers, pesticides and seeds.

The article attempts to explain how focus has shifted from an access-based approach to food security towards one that emphasizes food production above all else.

Read the full story: The corporate take-over of African food security