Former Brazil president Inácio Lula da Silva says subsistence agriculture must be abolished for African countries to end hunger
Liz Ford - The Guardian
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| Reaching out … Guaribas in north Brazil. Ending subsistence farming is key to addressing hunger, says Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Photograph: Dario Lopez-Mills/AP |
Subsistence agriculture must be abolished if African countries want to eradicate hunger by 2025, the former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, told a meeting in Addis Ababa on Sunday.
In a rousing speech to open a conference of African ministers and international leaders, Lula said Africa could end hunger if there was enough political will to embed the needs of poor people in national policy.
"It's necessary for us to put in the minds and hearts of people to produce … [and] have access to technology and modern machinery to increase their productivity. Brazil overcame this idea that citizens only grow for their subsistence. They have to have excess to sell," he told the conference at the African Union.
Drawing on Brazil's Fome Zero (zero hunger) programme, Lula said his country's successes could be repeated elsewhere. But to do this, he said, poor people must be included in national budget plans and their needs seen as investments rather than an extra state expense.
"It is possible and it is within our reach to eradicate hunger in Brazil and in African countries and any other place in the world," he said. "[Tackling poverty] should become government policy, it should not be ad-hoc policy or something for electoral campaigns.
