Prevention is considerably cheaper and more effective than a cure.

Africa is in a desperate need that an action is taken now to support this project that will prevent vulnerable communities from becoming malnourished as a result of the pricing crisis. Wait too long to act, and treating millions of malnourished men, women and children will prove a huge undertaking. Prevention is considerably cheaper and more effective than a cure. This project is based on a vision to the conflict prevention, food self reliance and security in the continent to mitigate the impact of food crises on vulnerable groups such as PLWHA and the orphans.

The Agriculture for Self reliance project (ASRP) is designed to tackle the food security¡s most important aspects including food availability, food access and food adequacy. Food availability has to do with the supply of food. This should be sufficient in quantity and quality and also provide variety. Food access addresses the demand for the food. It is influenced by economic factors, physical infrastructure and consumer preferences. In the African continent food availability, that is essential in ensuring food security, does not guarantee food access in the desirable quantity and quality. Food security should ensure an adequate consistent and dependable supply of energy and nutrients. Ultimately food security should translate to an active healthy life for every individual. For this to take place the nutritionally adequate diet should be biologically utilized so that adequate performance is maintained in growth, resistance or recovery from disease, pregnancy, lactation and or physical work. Hence adequate health and care must be provided in addition to adequate food. Herein lays the problem facing poor people today. Food insecurity has the potential to influence food intake and ultimately the health and nutritional status of people. In developing countries over 85 percent of the food consumed by poor people in rural settings is obtained from the farm. The importance of foods purchased from markets in meeting household food security depends on household food income and market price.

The seasonality of foods available highly influences food availability in places where little to no food conservation is available. This is the case with fruits and vegetables, which are highly perishable. Disease and infection continue to plague the African continent. Diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS not only reduce the manpower available to agriculture and household food acquisition, but also increase the burden of household in acquiring food.

The solution lies in increasing food availability, food access and food adequacy for all. Because the food insecurity in Africa is directly correlated with poverty, it is necessary to not only alleviate poverty but also create wealth for the target population.

This is what makes this Project so special. It proposes three strategies that when implemented together would hold good prospects for substantially alleviating food security in Africa. These are:
« Self reliance Agriculture;
« Nutritional interventions (including infrastructure ); and
« Capacity development and good governance