During a speech to the U.S.-Africa Business Forum, President Obama summarized $33 billion in new investment in the continent and said stable societies with forward-looking governments would be the foundation for economic growth. “Agricultural development is critical because it’s the best way to boost income for the majority of Africans who are farmers, especially as they deal with the impacts of climate change.”
The President mentioned the Feed the Future program, a public-private initiative that supports locally selected projects, and used the example of a Senegalese woman who, with a small amount of aid, boosted her farm’s output and mechanized it. “And suddenly what had started as just a program to increase her income had become capital for a growing business where she was now hiring people in her area and doing some of the process of the grain that she grew herself, so that she could move up the value chain.”
A fact sheet on the administration’s “Doing Business in Africa Campaign” mentioned two agricultural components. It said USDA would offer up to $1 billion in export credit guarantees over the next two years for farm goods to Africa. And, the U.S. Agency for International Development is to roll out its Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture this fall. The project will provide businesses with objective information on the ease of doing business in agriculture in various countries.