Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department is taking steps to ensure that UK aid spent in Africa supports small-scale organic farmers.
Answered by Nick Hurd
DFID’s Agricultural Policy Framework, published last year, sets out the approach and steps DFID will take to support agriculture. Depending on context and need, this is expected to include support to small scale organic, or smallholder, farmers in Africa. Our priorities include helping smallholder farmers to increase their productivity, and to better link them to markets to sell their produce so as to increase their incomes, improve their livelihoods and contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction.
For example we are providing support to the International Fund Agriculture Development’s Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme. This will help smallholder farmers in Africa cope with the impacts of climate change by providing extension services to farmers, improving irrigation and infrastructure, and helping farmers to increase their harvests through improved seeds and better soil and land management practices.
Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to support refugees from Iran; and what recent assessment she has made of the safety of Iranian refuges in Iraq.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
Since 2011, the UK has provided £163 million of core funding to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to deliver protection and assistance to refugees globally. The UK works with the Government of Iraq, Kurdish Regional Government, the UN and the international community to support the rights of all minorities and to ensure our aid reaches those in greatest need.