Faffa Food Factory
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
11:34 A.M. EAT
PRESIDENT OBAMA: (In progress) — is something called Feed the Future. And the goal is to drastically increase the productivity of a small group of farmers all throughout Africa. Because what we know is, is that a huge percentage of Africans are still getting their incomes from agriculture, and most of them are very small plots and not a lot of technology and not a lot of — but with just a few smart interventions, a little bit of help, they can make huge improvements in their overall deal.
So I don’t know if everybody was able to hear, but one of our farmers who is part of this program increased their yields threefold. So this used to be corn that she was able to produce; here is the corn she’s producing now — you get three times the yield, not only did she get more income to build a new house and get some more clothes, she also was able to buy a cow, which, in turns, obviously gives her additional resources to support her family. She’s now able to send her children to school.
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And what Feed the Future is doing is not just helping the farmer to increase their yield, now what we’re also able to do is to then connect the small farmer to factories like this one so that they have a market and they’re able to sell their products for a fair price. In turn, this factory is taking corn, soy, and other foodstuffs and it can package them into nutritious, low-cost meals that are actually then supplemented with vitamins and are enhancing the nutrition of more people all across Ethiopia.
So by some smart interventions, what we’re able to do is not only increase the incomes of millions of people all across Africa, we’re also able to create new markets and food-processing alongside the foodstuffs themselves. And that helps grow the economy as a whole.
We were talking about how Ethiopia has been seeing significant growth — a lot of that is because of outstanding women like this who go out there and they triple their income — that’s good for the entire country.
So just to give you a sense, so far about 7 million farmers have been impacted by Feed the Future so far. And we’re going to continue to increase in the years to come — and we’ve gotten terrific cooperation from governments all across Africa. It’s one of the things I’ll be talking about at the African Union today.
Thanks, guys.
END
11:36 A.M. EAT