Can African Farmers Learn to Thrive?

In an emergency session in Rome on July 25, the United Nations called for $1.6 billion in aid to stop a famine in Somalia. In next-door Ethiopia, Abebech Toga, a farmer in her 30s, was trying to help the Horn of Africa feed itself. Toga is a designated trainer for a UN program called Purchase for Progress. She teaches fellow farmers to time corn and coffee sales to get better market prices, to reduce moisture in harvested crops so higher-quality products result, and other skills.

Purchase for Progress is the signature program of Josette Sheeran, a former Bush Administration official who served in the State Dept. before running the UN’s World Food Programme, the world’s biggest food-aid agency. When she joined the WFP in 2007, she looked for new ways to combat hunger. “What we began to ask,” says Sheeran, “is how do we purchase [food] in a way that helps it be a solution to hunger?” She says the WFP found the answer in what’s called P4P, which uses the WFP’s buying power to integrate the world’s poorest farmers into the global food economy. The drawback is that if the model takes off, some Americans could lose their jobs.