MEDIA CONTACTS: 
Beth Sanzone
Esanzone@thechicagocouncil.org
(202) 778-1079

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs today announced it is undertaking an initiative to bring attention to the need for renewed U.S. leadership in long-term global agricultural development. Over the next ten months, the Council will examine how the United States can better contribute to global poverty alleviation and food security through an international effort to help raise the productivity of small farmers, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The project is funded by a grant of nearly $1 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Global Agricultural Development Project will convene a bipartisan group of former government, business, and civic leaders, and experts in the fields of agricultural development, U.S. foreign policy, trade, and international economics to propose a series of recommendations that can help increase the productivity and incomes of small-holder farming families and advance global agricultural development as a major U.S. foreign aid priority.

A project report and recommendations will be broadly disseminated on a bipartisan basis to the incoming administration and senior officials, key leaders in the new Congress, policy influencers, and U.S. and international media and opinion leaders in early 2009.

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has recognized The Chicago Council for its prior work on agricultural issues," said Marshall M. Bouton, president of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “This project will help shape the national discourse about the future of U.S. development policy at a time of change.”

Dan Glickman and Catherine Bertini will serve as co-chairs of the project. Mr. Glickman, currently chairman and chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, served as secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1995 to 2001. During his 18-year tenure in the U.S. Congress, Glickman was a senior member of the House Committee on Agriculture. Ms. Bertini served as the executive director of the UN World Food Programme from 1992 to 2002, and is presently a professor of public administration at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School and senior fellow of agricultural development for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program. She also served as cochair of the 2006 Agriculture Task Force of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

"During my international travels as secretary of agriculture, I saw firsthand how a thriving agricultural sector decreases poverty, increases national wealth, allows the state to reinvest in the sector, and provides a better daily life for the people,” said Mr. Glickman. “It is in the direct interest of the United States to help as many nations as possible achieve such a goal as it is in line with our foreign policy, economic development, and humanitarian goals."

U.S. spending on agricultural development has fallen from around $1.6 billion annually in the 1980s to just over $300 million per year this decade. In 1980, agriculture accounted for 30 percent of the World Bank’s lending; by 2007 it was only 13 percent. 

While immediate reaction to the sharp increase in food prices might reverse this trend and lead to a modest short-term growth in spending, there is no current government-driven effort to significantly ramp up sustained investment in global agricultural development to alleviate rural poverty and related hunger over the long-term. 

“Agricultural development is the essential first step to alleviate extreme poverty and hunger in developing nations,” said Ms. Bertini. “Three quarters of the world’s poorest people live on less than $1 per day and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Most of these small stake-holder farmers are women. Agriculture is an issue of survival, the health of their children, and hope of rising from poverty.”

About The Chicago Council on Global Affairs
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, founded in 1922, is a prominent, independent and nonpartisan organization committed to influencing the discourse on global issues through contributions to opinion and policy formation, leadership dialogue, and public learning. Long known for its studies of American public opinion on foreign policy matters, the Council is expanding its contributions to discussions of critical global issues through studies, task force reports, and leadership dialogue. Recent Chicago Council reports include task forces focused on rethinking U.S. agriculture policies to better align them with market opportunities and international obligations, examining the future of Chicago as a global city, and increasing the engagement of Muslim Americans in U.S. civic and political life. 

About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by chief executive officer Jeff Raikes and cochair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

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