BRUSSELS - Small-scale farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America are to receive a productivity boost through United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) projects supported by a donation of more than €34 million from the European Union’s (EU) Food Facility. 

“The European Union has recognised that one of the best ways to make sure people have access to food is to help small farmers increase production. That way, they can feed their families and increase availability of food on their local markets,” said Gemmo Lodesani, Director of WFP’s liaison office in Brussels. More than two million people, many of them children and vulnerable adults, will benefit from the food generated by five WFP programmes.

The funding for operations in Bolivia, Guatemala, Senegal, Nepal and the Philippines will help poor farmers – most of them women – to produce food more efficiently through programmes such as collective farming and crop diversification. In some communities, WFP will provide food in exchange for work to improve irrigation and flood resistance or early warning schemes to mitigate the impact of flood or drought.

These food security projects come under an allocation from a €1 billion EU Food Facility and will be carried out in coordination with WFP’s sister agencies, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. They are designed to respond to the growing food security problems faced by many developing countries.

The allocations include:  Bolivia (€1.8 million); Guatemala (€6.3 million); Senegal (€10.9 million); Nepal (€9 million); and Philippines (€6.4 million). In July, the EU also confirmed a €3.5 million contribution to WFP’s activities in Liberia under the EU Food Facility fund.