From All Africa via The Tanzania Citizen

A new report by London based World Development Movement (WDM) has warned against British government’s new 600m pounds sterling aid package targeting African countries to produce more food.

In its latest report, WDM said the £600 million in UK aid money is going to a scheme to help big businesses increase their profits in Africa. The report slams the scheme as fuelling a ‘corporate scramble for Africa.’

WDM’s report further noted that the UK government’s £600 million in aid to back the G8-sponsored New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition which targets to lift 50 million people out of poverty by 2022, is largely flawed.

“Campaigners say the scheme is set to benefit multinational companies like Monsanto and Unilever at the expense of millions of small-scale farmers and is likely to increase poverty and inequality on the continent,” the report stated.

Campaigners believe the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition will disempower small-scale farmers.

In return for receiving aid money and corporate investment through the New Alliance, the African countries involved have to change their laws, making it easier for corporations to acquire large tracts of farmland, control the supply of seeds, and ship agricultural produce to other parts of the world.

Read more at All Africa