President Mwai Kibaki has called for urgent and decisive action to curb the rising food prices.

Speaking when he officially opened the 25th Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Regional Conference for Africa at the United Nations Office Nairobi, President Kibaki urged the participants to come up with practical recommendations that would help in permanently resolving the food crisis that has adversely affected the survival and well-being of the vulnerable members of the society.

"Let me emphasize, however, that for the poor people who are shouldering the heaviest burden of the current high food prices, a solution must be found now. Therefore as you deliberate on these issues, I hope that you are also considering the fact that we need urgent and decisive action that will lead to prompt improvement of the situation," said President Kibaki.

In this regard, the Head of State emphasized that elaborate measures must be undertaken to reverse the prevailing and unfortunate situation to enable African nations achieve their cherished objectives of food security, economic prosperity and environmental sustainability.

President Kibaki observed, "Apart from crop production, some of the water basins in Africa have enormous potential for production of high-value freshwater fish. At the same time, this continent has access to valuable marine fishery resources. Regrettably, few of these resources are being exploited sufficiently due to lack of adequate investment."

He challenged African countries to fully utilize water resources endowed in the continent to attain food security and achieve desperately needed economic development.

President Kibaki regretted that despite Africa hosting some of the largest global water basins, the continent persistently failed to effectively harness water resources to unlock the potential of increased production in food stuffs such as rice and sugar.

The President said, "While the African Continent is considered to be water deficit region, we have some of the largest water basins which are yet to be fully exploited. For instance, only 4 percent of our annual renewable water resources have been developed for irrigation, domestic and industrial water supply or hydropower use compared to 70-90 percent in the developed countries."

He, at the same time, blamed a hefty food import bill for slowing agricultural growth and attainment of food security in Africa as envisaged by member countries during the 2004 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states Summit in Maputo.

The President said that during the summit, African countries committed to put agricultural growth and food security at the centre of their development agenda by increasing budgetary allocation to the sector to at least 10 per cent of their national budgets.

"The huge food import bill takes away resources that are crucial for investment, not only in support of agriculture, but also for the development of infrastructure as well as provision of other essential social services," said the President.

The Head of State at the same advocated for strengthened cooperation between African governments and development partners in order to avail both technical and financial resources to sustain food security in Africa.

He told the delegates, "I would like to emphasize that such cooperation is both necessary and urgent, given that the majority of our economies in Africa are agriculture based. Moreover, in many of our countries, farming is predominantly small scale and rain-fed."

President Kibaki noted that the performance of Africa's agricultural sector has persistently remained low because most produce is marketed with little or no value addition thus fetching low returns on investment.

He observed that such challenges afflicting the agricultural sector resulted to low economic growth rates which hindered attainment of the Millennium Development Goals and as well as other development targets.

President Kibaki reminded the participants that as measures to transform the agricultural sector were explored it was important to visualize that in the next two decades or so, fewer people would be engaged in agricultural production because a larger population in Africa will be living in urban areas and it will therefore be prudent to ensure efficient utilization of agricultural inputs and available land.

He said, "As we seek to transform the agricultural sector, it is important to note that in the next one to two decades, over 60 per cent of the total population in Africa will be living in urban areas. Those engaged in agricultural production will, therefore, be much fewer than is the case today."

The President noted that climate change had also aggravated the current food crisis in the world due to erratic and extreme weather patterns characterized by irregular seasons, severe droughts, floods and storms.

"Even though the full impact of climate change is still not very clear, the frequency and severity of extreme weather patterns have become serious threats to food and water security, poverty and disease," said the President.

He further appealed for increased intra-Africa trade to maximize the potential of the large and untapped market for goods and services in the region that constitutes a population of over one billion people.

"Increasing intra-Africa trade is crucial to facilitating rapid growth of our economies. The establishment of regional trading blocs has played an important role in enhancing trade amongst our countries," said President Kibaki.

Addressing the same forum FAO Director General, Dr Jacques Diouf, in his address said food insecurity in Africa was a political problem, which could be addressed through good governance and goodwill of the political leaders.

Dr. Diouf challenged African Countries to live up to the Maputo declaration on allocation of 10 per cent of their resources to development of Agriculture and food production.

The FAO secretary General also stressed the need for strengthening veterinary and sanitary services in African Countries as a measure to boost livestock production which was below 5 per cent.

He called for innovative measures to boost food production in Africa saying growing of drought resistant and early maturing crops need be given priority. He pledged continued technical support on policies the African Countries had to overcome food insecurity.

Agriculture Minister William Rut said Kenya, as Chair to the FAO conference for the next two years, will mobilize African Ministers of Agriculture to campaign to bring down the tariff and non-tariff imposed by developed Countries on African Products yet they enjoyed free markets for their industrial products.

Donors and Non Government organizations have under-invested in Agriculture in Africa in the last 30 years, Mr. Ruto said adding that the continent being agro-based economies have to change the tide to feed the population with reach 2.5 billion by 2050.

"Many African Countries are in agreement that agriculture is the engine of their economic growth but have neither allocated sufficient funds nor developed appropriate well researched policies and programmes to make the sector a vocal point that it really is", the Minister said.

The Executive Director HABITAT Dr Anna Tibaijuka who led in observing a minute of silence remembrance of the two ministers who perished in a plane crash last week said rapid urbanization was a contributory factor to food insecurity in Africa.

Saying that food rioters and most of the Hungry are in urban areas, Dr. Tibaijuka asked African Countries to check the trend by securing sustainable Agriculture in rural areas.

The 25th FAO regional conference of Agriculture Ministers intended to develop a prescription to a global food crisis that has already sparked off food riots in Nairobi, Dakar, Ndjamena and Cairo.

The continent is handicapped by outdated farming methods, erratic weather and a volatile international market.