Can the world buy its way out of hunger?

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is launching the Patient Procurement Platform to combat hunger by shifting its procurement strategy to buy more directly from small-scale family farmers. By leveraging its $1 billion annual spending power and forming a consortium of public and private partners, the WFP aims to reduce risks for smallholders and investors, thereby increasing crop yields and income for farmers in food-insecure rural communities.

• Small-scale family farmers in the developing world face significant barriers to escaping poverty and hunger, including susceptibility to climate-driven droughts and floods, lack of funds for seeds and fertilizers, and poor rural infrastructure and storage facilities that limit market access.
• The UN World Food Programme (WFP) spends over $1 billion annually on staple crops and intends to increase its direct purchases from small-scale family farmers to at least 10% annually over the next three years to boost local economies.
• The WFP is establishing the Patient Procurement Platform, a consortium of financial institutions, agro partners, and commodity buyers, to provide small-scale farmers with the investment, information, and market access needed to improve crop quality and yield.
• A five-year pilot project called Purchase for Progress (2009-2013) demonstrated the viability of this model by reaching hundreds of thousands of family farmers across 20 developing countries and purchasing 400,000 metric tons of staple crops.
• The Patient Procurement Platform will be launched later in 2015, with initial implementation following in-depth studies conducted in several sub-Saharan African countries.

APA

Cousin, E. (2015). Can the world buy its way out of hunger? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/food-water-air/can-the-world-buy-its-way-out-of-hunger/

Chicago

Cousin, Ertharin. Can the world buy its way out of hunger? World Economic Forum, 2015. https://www.weforum.org/stories/food-water-air/can-the-world-buy-its-way-out-of-hunger/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Cousin |first1=Ertharin |title=Can the world buy its way out of hunger? |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=22 January 2015 |url=https://www.weforum.org/stories/food-water-air/can-the-world-buy-its-way-out-of-hunger/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{cousin2015can, author = {Cousin, Ertharin}, title = {{Can the world buy its way out of hunger?}}, publisher = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2015}, month = jan, url = {https://www.weforum.org/stories/food-water-air/can-the-world-buy-its-way-out-of-hunger/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }