A new vision for agriculture
momagri, movement for a world agricultural organization, is a think tank chaired by Pierre Pagesse.
It brings together, managers from the agricultural world and important people from external perspectives,
such as health, development, strategy and defense. Its objective is to promote regulation
of agricultural markets by creating new evaluation tools, such as economic models and indicators,
and by drawing up proposals for an agricultural and international food policy.
A look at the news

Rising Prices and Food Security: Stepping up Investment in Agriculture

17 March 2008

At its February 14 meeting, the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)1emphasized "the urgency of increased investment in agriculture in the face of rising food prices" in the poorest and most vulnerable rural regions of the world.

The focus should consequently be two-fold:

› Ensuring that the rising cost of raw materials has a positive impact on smallholder producers. This presupposes a simultaneous drop in shipping costs, investment assistance via micro-lending in particular and decreased dependency on agricultural imports.

› Ensuring food security, since, as IFAD President Lennart Båge stated, it is "also a solution to other social ills ... youth unemployment, migration, urban slums and immigration."

This new awareness of agriculture as a strategic sector with "multiple potential benefits" has furthermore become more widespread within international institutions such as the World Bank, which in its 2008 World Development Reporte2stated that "a more dynamic and inclusive agriculture could dramatically reduce rural poverty, helping to meet the Millennium Development Goals." Speaking to this, IFAD Vice-President Kanayo Nwanze pointed out that in terms of development, "investments in agriculture generate returns that are higher than any other sector, at four-hundred percent."


1 IFAD, a specialized agency of the United Nations, is an international financial institution that has been working for 30 years to combat rural poverty, the leading consequence of famine.
2 Report published in October 2007.
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Paris, 21 May 2013