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The discernible change a season’s harvest of rice has brought to the western Kenyan town of Ahero also helps illustrate a message the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has trumpeted this year: governments need to invest more in agriculture to reduce the number of people who need food aid — currently one in six people on the globe.
Heads of state and government from around the world gather in Rome on Monday at an FAO summit to explore new strategies. The summit’s top goal is to rally the world behind a change in aid policy, and to secure a pledge to spend more money to develop agriculture in poor countries.
"When they wake up, there is somewhere they can go and work," Abiero said of his neighbors Friday as he sat at the edge of the four-acre paddy he’s had since 1968. "Before they used to go to sleep hungry and did not know whether they will be able to get food the following day." At a different plot, Erka Adhiambo Okiki echoed Abiero’s thoughts as she trudged through the paddy, pulling out weeds. Okiki said she prefers to work as a laborer in the rice fields, even though she grows maize and arrow roots on her own small plot.
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