The G-8 meets in Italy next week to talk about world issues. Ahead of the meet­ing of lead­ers of the eight rich­est nations, Oxfam asks that the coun­tries com­mit to spend­ing more money to help poor farmers.

From Reuters, reporter Les­ley Wroughton sum­ma­rizes the state­ment from Oxfam.

In a new report, Oxfam said agri­cul­tural assis­tance by Group of Eight donor coun­tries had fallen sharply, to around $5 bil­lion a year in 2007 from $20 bil­lion in the 1980s.
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“A sub­stan­tial increase in long-term agri­cul­ture invest­ments is loose change com­pared to ongo­ing invest­ments in rich coun­tries or the tril­lions of dol­lars spent glob­ally this year on the finan­cial bailout,” said the report’s author, Emily Alpert.

“Strength­en­ing the agri­cul­tural sec­tors of devel­op­ing coun­tries is a cru­cial part of the long-term solu­tion to the world’s food, finan­cial and cli­mate crises,” she added.

A dev­as­tat­ing cri­sis in food prices last year, which led to increased hunger, mal­nu­tri­tion and the risk of social unrest in many poor coun­tries, illus­trated why invest­ment in agri­cul­ture was nec­es­sary to boost global food sup­plies, Oxfam added.

Years of under­in­vest­ment have caused stag­nat­ing yields, degraded lands and a scarcity of fresh water in poor coun­tries, it said.

Invest­ment by donors, national gov­ern­ments and the pri­vate sec­tor in poor coun­tries should tar­get women and help improve knowl­edge about environmentally-sustainable farm­ing meth­ods in the wake of cli­mate changes, the report said.

In Africa, gov­ern­ments spend on aver­age 4.5 per­cent of their bud­gets on agri­cul­ture, the report said.

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