Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/annan-world-must-help-african-nations-tackle-food-crisis Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Fuel costs and supply shortages have caused a spike in food prices across Africa -- prompting calls for an agricultural revolution on the continent. Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan discusses efforts to address the crisis. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, tackling the food crisis in Africa. Nearly a billion people worldwide are hungry. The crisis has hit especially hard on the continent, where supply is a problem.Today, the U.S. government announced a partnership with a private African organization to create more productive farming throughout the continent. The group is known as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, and it's headed by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.Judy Woodruff sat down with him this afternoon in Washington, D.C. JUDY WOODRUFF: Kofi Annan, it's good to see you again. Thank you very much for talking with us. KOFI ANNAN, Former U.N. Secretary-General: Happy to be with you. JUDY WOODRUFF: For those of us who are wondering what Kofi Annan's been up to for the last two years since you've left the United Nations, tell us what this green revolution in Africa is all about. KOFI ANNAN: The green revolution is an attempt to help African farmers increase their agricultural production and to help Africa assure its own food security.Today, there's lots of crises, lots of excitement and concern about the food prices and the shortages, and I'm really happy that the world is focusing on this particular issue.But for Africa, this is not new. There has been a silent hunger for over the past 30 years. There are 200 million people today in Africa who don't get enough to eat. You have 33 million children who are malnourished.And so the idea is to work with the people and the governments of Africa to make sure we can contain and deal with this problem and resolve it once and for all.And the idea is to work with other stakeholders to ensure that the African farmer gets the right seeds, seeds that are high-yield and pest-resistant, and ensure that the African soil, which is the most depleted, is improved, working with the African farmers, making fertilizers available to them, the right type of fertilizers, and working with them on the quantities they should use, on water management, on storage, and marketing, so all along the value chain.