FOURTH AFRICAN-AFRICAN AMERICAN SUMMIT
Remarks
                                             Release No.0247.97

                                
                                
                               BY
                DEPUTY SECRETARY RICHARD ROMINGER
                 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
             FOURTH AFRICAN-AFRICAN AMERICAN SUMMIT
               HARARE, ZIMBABWE -- JULY 23, 1997

     
     Thank you. I am privileged to be among this distinguished company and
deeply honored to represent the United States Department of Agriculture to
the Fourth African- African American Summit.
     
     These Summits are less than a decade old, but they are accorded the
respect due an institution that offers the opportunity to shape the future
and change lives.
     
     My appreciation to the Reverend Leon Sullivan for bringing into clear
focus the promise and the possibilities of Africa. My thanks for the
strength of his goals and his conviction that Africa's potential will become
fulfillment if linked to education and investment through cooperation and
partnership.   
     
     It's been my experience that we don't often get the chance to
influence history. But this is such an opportunity. It was clear yesterday
in the ideas thrown open for discussion at the Agriculture Workshops that I
had the honor of co-chairing with Permanent Secretary Takavarasha.
     
     And it's clear in the reform we see around us, and the opportunities
it creates to help young democracies become a driving force for economic
growth, political stability and food security throughout Africa.
     
      Food security is an issue that dominates United States' thinking and
actions. I want to bring you up-to-date on our progress on this fundamental
responsibility. I assure you that the message I bring comes not only from
Washington, D.C., but from the conscience of the American people.
     
     As we stand on the cusp of a new millennium, perhaps the greatest
challenge we face is one that's been with us for centuries. One in seven of
the world's people suffer from hunger and malnutrition -- an estimated 800
million people in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and other parts of the
globe.  No country has been able to escape its grip -- not even our own.   
     This is a theme President Clinton, Vice President Gore and our highest
officials have taken around the world in the past year ... the World Food
Summit in Rome ... the U.S.-South Africa Binational Commission meetings in
Cape Town ... the economic "Summit of the Eight" last month in Denver,
Colorado ... and the Earth Summit at the United Nations in New York.
     
     Each forum was different. Each shed light on the complex factors
contributing to malnutrition and hunger. And each stressed the range of
positive steps that we can -- and must -- take to advance to a more food-secure future.
                                  
     It is the position and conviction of the United States that hunger is
a fundamentally unacceptable human condition -- whether it exists on
American soil or anywhere in the world.
     
     These are not just words.
     
     The United States has responded to the vast humanitarian crisis in the
Great Lakes region of Africa with a major share of the humanitarian
assistance.
     
      As the world's most agriculturally abundant nation, as the world's
leading democracy and a major supplier of food aid, we clearly have an
obligation to lead. This Administration will not shy away from it. But
victory will require much more than a federal commitment alone.
     
     Two months ago, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman opened national
consultations on food security to lay the foundation for what we hope will
be an unprecedented U.S. effort to uproot hunger wherever it occurs.  We can
only meet our goal of cutting in half the world's hungry and undernourished
by the year 2015 by getting at the root causes of hunger --poverty, income
inequality, and political instability. 
                                   
     That's the heart of the issue. In large measure it underlies the
African Growth and Opportunity Act that President Clinton announced last
month at the White House in Washington, D.C. 
     
     Reverend Sullivan and many other dignitaries were there. What they
heard was more than a strong policy statement. It was more than a trade
initiative now in the U.S. Congress. This bill reflects the fact that the
United States cares deeply about the future of Africa. It represents our
determination to help fulfill the promise of a stable, prosperous and
democratic Africa.

      We are committed to building the future with the nations of Africa
that in the words of President Clinton,"can help us work for peace, preserve
the environment, fight disease, and grow our own economy."
     
     American agriculture has an important self-interest in Africa's
economic success. We value our trading partners in sub-Saharan Africa. Our
mutual agricultural trade has grown significantly since early in the decade,
and U.S. agricultural imports from sub-Saharan nations are back on the
growth track.
     
     For example, U.S. agricultural exports to sub-Saharan Africa including
food aid increased more than 80 percent between 1990 and 1996. Even
excluding our largest single market in the region, the Republic of South
Africa, these exports reached $580 million. That's well above U.S.
agricultural exports to all of Central and Eastern Europe.
     
     And the U.S. is an important market for the region, with agricultural
goods from sub-Saharan Africa totalling over $770 million last year.  
      
     The African Growth and Opportunity Act eases the transition from
development help to economic self-reliance for African countries committed
to economic and political reform, market incentives, and private sector
growth.  
     It significantly increases access to our markets for African exports.
If the bill is approved, the number of products that African countries will
be able to export to the U.S. duty free will increase by almost 50 percent.
And the most committed African reformers will receive even greater access.
In the future, we will be prepared to negotiate free trade agreements with
these countries. 
     
     The bill also does something for the people of Africa that we strive
to achieve for citizens of our own rural communities back in the United
States -- and that's to hold out a hand to help them bridge tough barriers
that separate them from their fair share of economic opportunity.
     
      As a partner to Africa, the United States has a long-term stake in
the economic self-reliance of those countries committed to reform. This bill
-- if approved -- will increase private investment in Africa. Through the
Overseas Private Investment Corporation, it will create a new $150 million
equity fund to finance increased private investment, and a $500 million fund
for infrastructure investment in the sub-Saharan region. Both funds will pay
special attention to women entrepreneurs. They will support innovative
investments that expand opportunities for women and increase working
opportunities for the poor.
     
     This is something we can do. But, first and foremost, we look to the
leaders of the developing world. Any kind of long-term solution to the
scourge of starvation must start from within. Leaders must set in motion
democratic and free-market reforms to pull their countries out of poverty
and halt the cycle of dependence, to stabilize their countries, serve the
needs of their people, and strengthen their economy and infrastructure.
Without these changes, there is little the outside world can do. With these
changes, the United States stands ready to help them improve their own food
security.
     
     Along with freer agricultural trade worldwide, development will
empower more countries to grow or purchase enough food for their own people.
                                    
     But none of us -- anywhere on the globe - will know true food security
without a serious commitment to worldwide sustainable development.
     
     In the United States, this concept has driven historic reforms of our
conservation policies. As we're putting our most productive farmland to use,
we're protecting our most highly erodible land.
     
     This is an aspect of my work at the U.S. Department of Agriculture
that's tremendously rewarding. By background, I am a farmer from the state
of California. My sons and my brother still farm there. So my interest in
feeding a growing world while preserving and protecting our lands, our soil
and water is professional, but it is also very personal.
     
     Secretary Dan Glickman and I have travelled the world talking with
officials about hunger, global population, sound science, trade, and the
race to preserve our natural resource base while increasing yields. We've
accepted the challenge of sustainability that came out of the United Nations
Conference in Rio de Janeiro.
     
     If we think from a perspective beyond our own years, then sustainable
development should rank among the highest global priorities -- whether it's
preserving farmland, forests, or fisheries, or reducing population pressures
on our resources. The United States stands ready to share our expertise and
promote worldwide sustainable development. We will continue to support
implementation of the Cairo Program of Action and move toward voluntary
population stabilization.
     
     Like the environment and its fragile resources themselves, these are
issues that bind all of us and connect us and our children to the future.
These are tough matters, easy to state, difficult to achieve, and very
dependent on economic and social factors. I want to acknowledge President
Robert Mugabe's powerful speech last month at the United Nations on the
African struggle to achieve sustainable development. President Mugabe
touched many people with his words and his message was heard -- and
reflected upon -- throughout the world.
                                 
                                
     We must also look to technology for serious answers to tough
questions: How do we feed a growing world while protecting our land? And how
do we produce more food from existing farmland?
     
     Over the next 25 years or so, global population will increase by more
than two billion people. That's the equivalent of two more India's or three
additional sub-Saharan Africa's.
     
     Without biotechnology, we will be forced to exploit highly erodible
farm and forest land. This may meet short-term needs, but in the end our
legacy to future generations will be a barren earth.
     
     The alternative and the hope are in the laboratories and research
centers of our  dedicated scientists around the world -- places like the
International Center for the Improvement of Corn and Wheat in Mexico. This
is the birthplace of Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug's Green Revolution.
From this site, Borlaug helped develop the high-yield, low-pesticide dwarf
wheat that much of the world's population now depends on.
       
     From a rice germplasm lab to a plant gene expression center, I've seen
firsthand the miracles our scientists are working. I've talked with U.S.
agricultural researchers, and I know that science is on our side.
Biotechnology moves us constantly closer to food security by improving
disease and pest resistance, increasing tolerance to environmental stress,
raising crop yields, and preserving plant and animal diversity.
      
     Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who is also a farmer and who has a
deep personal commitment to Africa, has captured the essence of the argument
for biotechnology.
     " ...it is grievous," he says, "that we have within our power the
ability to prevent starvation, but fail to act on it.  We cannot turn back
the clock and only use methods that were developed to feed a much smaller
number of people... new scientific discoveries now have the potential to
improve the yield, dependability and quality of agricultural crops in ways
that build upon -- but go significantly beyond -- traditional plant
breeding... Responsible biotechnology is not the enemy; starvation is.
Without adequate food supplies at affordable prices, we cannot expect world
health, or peace."
     
     The connection that former President Carter makes between food and
peace was also noted some 30 years ago by another U.S. statesman, Vice
President Hubert Humphrey. A fine orator and a great humanitarian, Vice
President Humphrey once said, How I wish those whose hearts cry out for
peace would concentrate their attention and their emotions and their sense
of morality and spirit upon the subjects of world hunger and world want."
     
     The fact is that every nation with a critical interest in world peace
and security has a critical interest in ending world hunger. The path is
complicated, but the destination is straightforward. Hunger is unacceptable.
     
      Let us concentrate not just our attention and emotions -- but our
actions and our partnerships -- on achieving for all our citizens the basic
human dignity of a food-secure world.

 Thank you. 
                                #

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