By the UN's count, the East African drought has already left 2 million infants malnourished and 30,000 people dead. And without much-needed attention from the international community, the crisis is only getting worse.

In a new report, the UN increased its estimate of the number of people currently at risk of starvation in East Africa to 13 million, from nine million just two weeks ago.

In Isiolo, an elder farmer stands in a field that hasn't produced since 1997 because of drought. (Frederic Courbet/Panos Picures/ActionAid)

ActionAid UK project support officer Hannah Burrows has been in East Africa for three weeks blogging on the ongoing drought in Kenya. In the eastern town of Isiolo(pictured above), Hannah visited markets emptied out by food shortages and exorbitant prices. In northern Kenya, Hannah reported on the social impacts of drought as families move closer to the few remaining wells, and children are taken out of school to help find water.

But nowhere have the effects of the drought been more apparent than in the town of Sericho, which hasn't seen rain since 2008. ActionAid has been working with the UN Food Programme in the town to provide relief for about 85 percent of the population.

Dahano Adan, a single mother of three, said her family lost all 50 of its goats during a drought in 2009 and has since depended on a small salary from her housekeeping job to feed her children. Like many of the women in Sericho, Dahano has been forced to go it alone since 2009, when her husband left the family because he was unable to cope with the stress of the drought.

ActionAid has been among a handful of international agencies leading emergency relief efforts in East Africa, working with local leaders to deliver food shipments and water trucks to the region. ActionAid is urgently asking its supporters for help with ongoing emergency relief efforts. For more information on the drought or to make a donation, please visit our Web site.

While ActionAid will continue to provide crucial emergency relief, we are also looking ahead to long-term solutions. In a region prone to droughts, developing a sustainable defence against drought-induced famine is absolutely critical. The solution? Providing support for women smallholder farmers like Dahano.

Our Fertile Ground campaign aims to gain international support for women farmers, who produce more than 60 percent of the world's food but are the hardest hit by food insecurity.  ActionAid is calling on the Australian government to support women small-holder farmers the world over. To join our call, sign our online petition.

Sign ActionAid's Fertile Ground petition calling on the Australian Government to do more to address the long term causes of hunger and famine - not just provide emergency handouts.

The United Nations officially declared a famine in parts of Somalia Wednesday amid the worst drought in east Africa in more than 50 years.

Under the UN's five-stage classification system, the "famine" designation means that at least two people per 10,000 are dying everyday and there are less than 7.5 litres of water available per person per day.

In a region already hit hard by rising global food prices, the African drought has devastated domestic farming and intensified price spikes. According to the BBC, the drought has already affected more than 10 million people across the Horn of Africa, and has sent tens of thousands of Somalis fleeing to neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia.

The drought is the result of poor rains over the past two years, likely exacerbated by climate change. The next rainy season is not expected until October, but meteorologists do not anticipate rains to return in full until 2012.

The drought has been devastating for smallholder farmers like Priscilla Eduru, a 63-year-old widowed mother of 10 from Kenya. After a series of droughts wiped out all of her livestock in the past few years, Priscilla and her family have survived on a diet of wild fruit, which they harvest from the bush. The poisonous fruit must be boiled for hours to remove their toxins and have little nutritional value.

"Most of our children are malnourished at present because we lost all our livestock," Priscilla says. "There is no nutritious food to feed the children with."

Priscilla said this year's drought is the worst she's ever seen. In the past, farmers could move their livestock to find grass and water, or they could trade in their animals for relatively cheap store-bought food. This year, those options are no longer available.

"There is no livestock to sell," Priscilla said. "And the worst is that there is not any food left to buy when you do have the money."

Until the rains allow them to start planting again, the people of east Africa will be dependent on international food aid. Since the start of the crisis, ActionAid has helped provide food and water to more than 200,000 people in the region.

But more needs to be done.

ActionAid Australia has joined with its partners around the globe to help raise emergency funds for those affected by the ongoing drought. For more information on the drought or to make a donation, please visit our Web site.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization elected former Brazilian minister of food security José Graziano da Silva—a vocal supporter of small-holder farming—to its highest post on Monday.

Graziano da Silva has been recognised as a leader in the fight against hunger in his home country. In 2003, he spearheaded Brazil's comprehensive Zero Hunger Initiative, which included direct money transfers to families, water infrastructure projects, and financial support for subsistence farmers.

In just eight years, Bolsa Familia—the initiative's flagship programme—has lifted more than 12 million Brazilians out of poverty and alleviated hunger across the country.

Graziano da Silva—the first new FAO leader since 1994—will take the reins of the UN's largest agency at a critical moment. According to The Guardian, global food prices hit an all-time high in February and remain a major worry for governments around the world.

Ever-rising food prices prompted the G20's agriculture ministers to draft an action plan to curb market volatility at a meeting  in Paris last week. In their report, the G20 ministers warned that biofuel production could inflate food prices to dangerous levels.

In his first press conference as director-general, however, Graziano da Silva bucked previous FAO and OECD warnings by coming to the defence of the biofuel production in his home country. The former Brazilian minister warned against "demonising" the industry, saying the international community must focus on helping food-importers rather than biofuel policies.

Earlier this month, ActionAid Australia and the Australian National University brought development experts and academics together to discuss the impending food crisis and what the international community can do to prevent it. The answer: more support for women small-holder farmers.

Graziano da Silva has welcomed a seven-point plan for supporting women small-holder farmers, published last week by ActionAid and a handful of civil service organisations. "Timeliness on the focus on women in food and agriculture could not be better," he said at a meeting on women farmers on Tuesday. "The road ahead is clear."

ActionAid is calling on the Australian government to support women small-holder farmers the world over. Canberra can start by increasing its contribution to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme, and championing the cause on the international political stage.

With a sympathetic ear in the new FAO chief, the Australian government can now be more effective than ever in pushing support for women small-holder farmers to the top of the global political agenda.

Under Graziano da Silva's guidance, Brazil was able to feed millions of its citizens by supporting small-holder and subsistence farming. Imagine what effect that might have if all countries did the same.

Today’s release of the annual Lowy Poll reveals a disappointing drop in support for action on climate change, but on the matter of foreign aid, the results are extraordinarily positive.

This is the second year in a row the Lowy has included a question on support for foreign aid as part of its poll. It shows no change in the percentage of those who believe helping countries in our region to reduce poverty is “very important” – staying static at 54% of Australians.

But this year, the Lowy added two additional questions on foreign aid that are incredibly illuminating.

To find out what Australians think about the government’s proposed increase in foreign aid, the Lowy asked respondents to give their “hunch” about what percentage of the Australian Federal budget they think is actually spent on foreign aid. Here is where it gets interesting.

On average, Australians believe aid accounts for 16% of the Federal budget, with almost a third (31%) guessing 20% of more of the budget goes to foreign aid.

In reality, current spending on foreign aid accounts for just 1.3% of the Federal budget and 0.35% of Gross National Income.

But wait, there’s more.

People were then asked “what percentage of the Australian Federal budget, if any, do you personally think should be spent on foreign aid”. On average, Australians said they wanted 12% of the Federal budget spent on foreign aid. That’s right - almost ten times the actual amount!

Now let’s draw all these figures together and see what picture it paints.

Although only 54% of Australians believe helping countries in our region to reduce poverty is very important, a further 35% deem it fairly important. That’s a grand total of 89% of Australian who believe foreign aid is an important aspect of our foreign policy.

So, what does that leave us with?

Nine in 10 Australians think tackling poverty is important and want to spend 12% of our Federal budget doing so.

From the lips of Australians to Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd’s ears…

These figures actually correlate quite closely to those from the United States when WorldPublicOpinion.org askeda similar set of questions in November 2010. Although in that case, respondents overestimated even more how much was spent on aid (27%), but arrived at similar conclusions as Australians on how much should be spent (13%).

Alas, I won’t be losing any sleep waiting for a ten-fold increase in Australia's aid budget, but I'll make sure I point these figures out to Mr Rudd and his advisors next time we meet.

PS: If you want all the gory details, you can download the Lowy Poll 2011 report in full from the Lowy website.

Below is a guest post from Malcolm Wren, campaign coordinator at ActionAid Australia.

There’s a mix of excitement and relief around the ActionAid office in Sydney this week.

Excitement because on Saturday morning, Polly Apio, a small scale farmer from eastern Uganda, and Harriet Gimbo, women’s rights advisor for ActionAid Uganda, landed in Sydney after the long, long trip from Africa, to help take the message of our Fertile Ground campaign to the Australian public.

And relief because they have finally arrived! There has been lots of to’ing and fro’ing, planning and visa issues that led to a delay in their travel plans (Polly and Harriet were supposed to be guests of honour at our recent debate at Australian National University). So, it was a lovely moment when I saw them come through the arrival gates.

This week was spent getting to know each other better and preparing for the presentations Polly and Harriet will be conducting throughout regional Australia.

Here in Sydney, we know all the stark facts and figures about hunger and the positive impact of supporting women farmers to feed themselves, their families and communities. But listening to Polly’s story, I couldn’t help but feel a new wave of inspiration and motivation wash over me.

Over the next two weeks we will be spreading the message that supporting farmers like Polly is one of the key ways governments can address the food crisis. Our ask is simple – join with Polly and ActionAid in urging Prime Minister Julia Gillard to use her position within the G20 group of the world’s richest nations to be champion for women farmers.

We’ll be meeting all sorts of people along the way – agriculture students, food sovereignty activists, sustainable farmers and, importantly, Australian women farmers who know full well the challenges of working on the land.

We’ll also be meeting two special women – Tina and Hannah - the winners of the ActionAid Hunger Busting Blogger competition who will travel to Africa next month to take part in a fortnight-long training and who will talking about issues of food security throughout the next 12 months.

So stay tuned - Polly has seen and experienced the devastating effects of hunger first hand but brings good news about a better future - and we’ll be telling stories of that future on this blog as we go along.

ActionAid Australia has launched a campaign calling on the Australian government to become a leader in agricultural aid by supporting women farmers who, if given a little support to bring their yields up to that of men, could produce enough food to lift at least 100 million people out of hunger. Learn more about ActionAid Australia’s Fertile Ground campaign

Below is a guest post from ActionAid's expert on global economic justice Soren Ambrose written following, what sounds like, a very frustrating meeting with the French Minister of Agriculture, Bruno Le Maire.

Yesterday, I went with a few other ActionAid staff and some French civil society groups to meet the host of the first gathering of G20 Agriculture Ministers later this week in Paris, French Minister of Agriculture, Bruno Le Maire. It was a cultural experience through and through – it turns out that French government and civil society routinely wear jeans instead of suits to meetings like this – but there was one mystery I couldn’t figure out.

Mr. Le Maire started with a hearty introduction about the challenge of food price volatility and the threat to food security that it poses… and even a bit about the importance of strong leadership by the G20 on this issue. I understood all of that. I have been thinking a lot about the food price volatility issue lately – and the 44 million people in the second half of last year that dipped into extreme poverty because of high food prices are living the impact at a much deeper level.

But then the Minister insisted several times that the Action Plan coming out of the meeting on Thursday would be “ambitious” and that if it got watered down any more he would opt not to pass an agreement. He would allow it to fail rather than put forward a “meaningless” statement.

Here is where I got stuck. You see, the draft Action Plan has been leaked. One can find it on Google groups. And it is swimming with rhetoric and practically devoid of substantive action. My understanding of “meaningful” and “ambitious” would be to take seriously the fact that we are in a food emergency and propose real action to resolve the drivers of skyrocketing food prices. Act now – not later.

My hope would be that the Ministers would commit not only to talk about women smallholder farmers but also to commit to release the resources pledged a year ago to fund food security programs around the world.

I would hope that the Ministers would go beyond a “hint” (as Le Maire described it) at biofuels. At the last G20, 10 organizations were tasked with identifying the problems leading to food price hikes and biofuels featured prominently. The organizations recommended that the G20 commit to dropping subsidies and targets for biofuels – so it would be my hope that the G20 Agricultural Ministers would agree to that recommendation. Unfortunately, it looks like they will settle with a “hint” and perhaps commission another study.

Likewise, a study seems to be the most likely outcome on food reserves. Despite the evidence that food reserves have worked to mitigate the last food crisis that tossed 100 million people into poverty in 2008, and that we are again in a period of volatile prices and in great need of urgent action to construct regional food reserves. If all we get is another study, can you really call that “meaningful”? “Ambitious”? At least give us the pilot program that the World Food Programme has recommended.

The real cultural gap was not a matter of language or nationalities, but the standards used for international politics to define “ambitious” compared to the reality of people coping with food price spikes. In the end the ministers will likely adapt the definition of “meaningful” to whatever they put out in the Action Plan because the only thing more unthinkable than putting gout a “business-as-usual plan” in Le Maire’s rarefied political culture would be putting out nothing at all. I guess my learning is that we advocates need to be interpreters as well, and work to integrate the world of international politics and dubious definitions with the reality where the food emergency is already taking a toll.

ActionAid Australia has launched a campaign calling on the Australian government to become a leader in agricultural aid by supporting women farmers who, if given a little support to bring their yields up to that of men, could produce enough food to lift at least 100 million people out of hunger. Learn more about ActionAid Australia's Fertile Ground campaign

Guest post from ActionAid senior program coordinator Sally Henderson.

We are sitting on a raised wooden structure, surrounded by verdant forests, the kind which feels like it would grow on you if you stood still for long enough.

Surrounding us, are members from a group of community foresters who live in the village of Sambour Meas right-up on the border between Cambodia and Thailand in Oddar Maenchy Province.

They begin their presentation referring to large butcher paper sheets covered with the curves of Khmer letters. This community collects honey, leaves, mushrooms, rattan and berries amongst other non-timber products from the forests. They grow rice but the yields have been poor especially in the last few years due to duration and frequency of drought.

We are getting a bit hot and sweaty, but what they are about to tell us is so inspiring that we manage to forget about our state for a while.

Recently, as many readers may know, there has been the outbreak of conflict between the Thai and Cambodian forces. By the time we are sitting with these villagers the conflict has ended but the soldiers are still present in the forests.

The villagers patrol regularly in these forests, equipped only with a knife and a mobile phone. They noticed a group of soldiers that were cutting down logs illegally. When they approached, the soldiers stated that they had permission from their commander to log in the forest and then proceeded to fire on the community patrollers.

On return to their homes, the patrollers informed the head of the group of what had happened. With the support of CDA staff, an ActionAid Cambodia implementing partner, the community group rang the Cambodian Forestry Commission with such persistency that, the responsible official eventually agreed to contact the Army Commander.

The Commander confirmed that not only was no permission given to log the forest, but that the community was entitled to seize the logs that had been cut. They did just this and the logs were used to construct a community hall.

The community has also taken the army to court for firing on unarmed civilians and by the time we were there, they had visited the two-hour distant Siem Rep three times for court hearings.

After hearing this story, we looked upon this modest group of villagers with different eyes. We are left with an image of mobiles, knives, solidarity and persistence being used to fight against armed soldiers.

There will be more battles to fight in the future. This area was one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge and was declared a Province only recently.

The Government has not started land titling here for communities, but have started to grant economic land concessions to foreign companies to grow lucrative crops such as rubber and sugar cane.

Foreign companies tend to bring their own staff and if they employ locals it is at such low rates that crossing the border to Thailand is more lucrative. CDA is working with many to map the community holdings and have pushed for the land titling process to be accelerated, but they expect troubles ahead.

Though something tells me this particular community is up for the fight.

Meet Polly. She's a smallholder farmer from Uganda working to promote sustainable agriculture and the status of women farmers in her country.

Next week, ActionAid Australia will welcome Polly for a two-week speaking tour for rural communities across New South Wales and Victoria.

Polly is scheduled to arrive in Sydney on 18 June, and will travel to Orange, Bellingen and Armidale before finishing her trip in Melbourne (no public events) at the end of the month.

Polly (her full name is Ocola Apio Polly) comes to us from a small town in a drought-prone region of eastern Uganda, where she lives with her husband and 11 children. She grows oranges, groundnuts, cowpeas and cassava on 10 acres of family-owned land, which she uses to feed her family and make a living.

Polly is also an influential leader in her community, spearheading the creation of a co-op for women farmers that pools community resources to build up local food stocks.

Women farmers like Polly play a critical role in ending hunger around the world. According to an ActionAid report released last year, women farmers produce 60 to 80 percent of food in developing nations, though many are barred from owning farmland and are excluded from agricultural aid programs. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, closing the agriculture gender gap could reduce the number of hungry people by 12 - 17 percent worldwide. That's roughly 100 million people.

ActionAid's Fertile Ground campaign is aimed at supporting women farmers like Polly to protect food security in the most vulnerable communities. Here in Australia, ActionAid is calling on the government to make good on its $464.2m food security commitment under the G8's L'Aquila Food Security Initiative.

ActionAid is also urging the Australian government to push for financial and political support for women farmers in the G20. During her time in Australia, Polly will show exactly why those food commitments are critical to smallholder farmers and their families.

So why not come to one of Polly's talks and meet her in person. If you're interested in coming along to any of the events, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it