The European Commission has proposed an aid package to poor African farmers in light of rising global food prices.

The idea is to help them with auxiliary goods, including seed and fertilizer, so that they can increase production. In the midst of rising prices, this production bump is to have a double positive-impact for poor farmers: more production and higher prices for their goods.

This all sounds good and fine; however, there are two problems with the announced project.

First, the €1.5 billion that have been announced for the project will come from leftover funds from the EU’s agricultural subsidy fund. If there would have been €2 billion left instead, would that have been the amount of aid given to African farmers? And had there been nothing left in the fund, where would this agricultural aid project’s budget come from?

This is definitely not the way you finance a serious aid project. If the project is legitimate, there would have been a professional evaluation of project cost and financing would come from the pertinent fund, as opposed to being sourced from unplanned leftovers.

It sounds like the authorities are wasting this money that’s ended up in their coffers instead of spending it on a project that’s considered necessary and important.

The second problem: the project changes nothing with respect to the repressive agricultural policy of the EU. Under the proposal, African farmers could indeed produce more and will benefit because global food prices are indeed high, but the EU still won’t let African farmers sell their goods in the EU, so how are we to believe that any of this is helping the Africans in the long-term?

We’re all for aid to the poor in Africa, put this stands as just another botched job by the Europeans.