Agricultural aid

EU plans to donate spare 1bn to African farmers

Article published on the 2008-07-18 Latest update 2008-07-18 16:50 TU

The European Commission proposed to donate one billion euros left over from its budget to farmers in African countries to help them tackle skyrocketing food prices. The “facility for rapid response to soaring food prices in developing countries” would come from surplus money in the EU’s agriculture budget, and would be spend over the course of two years.

“[It’s] An important step being made by Europe on behalf of its citizens in solidarity with Africa partners, reacting in real time to an urgent situation,” James Clancy, development and humanitarian spokesperson for the European Commission, told RFI.

“It could well be spent on, for example, fertilizers or seeds: the essentials for farmers to get agriculture back into Africa,” he said.

But some EU countries are opposing the plan, arguing that left-over money is usually reimbursed to those countries that contribute the most to the European budget. German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced doubts at the recent G8 summit in Japan, saying “we haven’t had our last word on this.”

But if approved, farmers could be seeing funds distributed through various NGOs and UN agencies in a few months.

“This is not about humanitarian aid. We’ve already dealt with that in the last few months: 500 million euros has been provided by the commission. This is about trying to put agriculture really back into Africa,” Clancy said.

“It’s an act of solidarity with the world’s poorest, but also a responsible measure to promote stability,” commission chief Jose Manuel Borroso said in a statement.