The European Parliament today called on the Commission and member states like the UK to stop funding the 'New Alliance' plan to force export-oriented agribusiness onto Africa. Instead they want support for small-scale family farms and agroecology.
The 'New Alliance', backed by £600m of UK aid, is meant to improve food security, reduce malnutrition and lift people out of poverty, writes Aisha Dodwell. But it's all a huge con - delivering corporate welfare, attacking small farmers, enabling land grabs - and leaving a trail of poverty and human devastation. It draws praise from only a single review of its activities: its own.
Subsistence farming may be seen as a low rung on the development ladder but it can play a vital role in helping low-income countries to adapt to climate change says a government-funded report
Department for International Development (DfID) accused of failing to support long-term agricultural programmes and being obsessed with an 'industrial model' of food production