Peace Corps: Helping Feed the Future

For more than 50 years, Peace Corps volunteers around the world have taken an active role in addressing critical food security issues, working with one farmer, one family, and one community at a time.

President Obama and other G-8 Leaders met last week to address food security and nutrition in Africa. The President also announced a new alliance with the G-8, African leaders and private sector partners to drive investment in sustainable African agricultural development and lift 50 million people out of poverty.  This landmark meeting underscored the importance of the President’s Feed the Future initiative, and last summer, the Peace Corps and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) pledged to provide enhanced food security training to more than 1,000 Peace Corps volunteers.

On May 23, at Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C., Peace Corps reaffirmed our commitment to food security and discussed our joint efforts to make sustainable change. I was joined by USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, USAID Assistant to the Administrator of the Bureau of Food Security Paul Weisenfeld, and Peace Corps volunteers and staff to discuss our work to train volunteers and the people they work with on this important topic.