Global food supply far from secure-farming expert

Africa's farmers need help to access loans, fertiliser and export markets to avoid future food supply crises caused by climate change and commodities speculation, a top agricultural expert said on Tuesday. Wheat, rice and maize prices have fallen sharply from their 2008 highs, when protests broke out across the developing world over unaffordable staple foods and countries imposed export bans to ensure their people had enough to eat. Akinwumi Adesina of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, an aid group headed by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said commodity markets dampened by recession were serving to mask "the next storm". "The global food supply remains far from secure," Adesina told the U.N. Conference and Trade and Development (UNCTAD). "We have not yet tamed the forces of speculation, climate change will yet trample our farm fields, crop diversity remains under increasing threat," he said in a speech. "Global grain reserves may be replenished for the time being, but global food security remains a goal, not a reality." One of the biggest problems, according to the agricultural economist from Nigeria, is the persistently paltry harvests from Africa's farms, most of which are tended to be "without access to basic farm inputs, finance or markets" ...Reuters