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Friday, Jun 28, 2013 1:30 PM UTC

WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK: Obama pitches aid in Africa

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WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK: Obama pitches aid in AfricaOumou Gadio, a local farmer, shows U.S. President Barack Obama an old technique for rice milling during a food security expo tour on Friday, June 28, 2013, in Dakar, Senegal. Obama met with farmers, innovators, and entrepreneurs whose new methods and technologies are improving the lives of smallholder farmers throughout West Africa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)(Credit: AP)

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — President Barack Obama is pitching U.S. foreign aid and, by extension, an image of a new Africa — not one of malnourished children with hollow eyes and distended tummies, but one of smiles and plump babies.

Obama on Friday toured a series of booths set up behind his Dakar hotel that were designed to showcase Senegalese agriculture with a focus on nutrition and fortified foods.

At one of the booths, a large poster featured a healthy-looking baby in the arms of a smiling mother.

“That’s a big, fat and happy kid,” Obama said.

At another, he spoke to a farmer who displayed a sweet potato fortified with beta-carotene.

“This is not just your average sweet potato,” Obama said. “This is your super-duper sweet potato.”

The message was in part meant for an audience back home, where foreign aid in an age of budget squeezes is often first in line for cutbacks. The food programs get help from Feed the Future, a public private partnership initiated in 2010 that the administration says has helped seven million small farmers in 19 developing nations, including 7,000 in Senegal.

“When people ask what is happening to their taxpayer dollars in foreign aid, I want people to know that this money is not being wasted,” Obama said. “It’s helping feed families, it’s helping people to become more self-sufficient, and it’s creating new markets for U.S. companies. It’s a win-win situation.”

He needled reporters following him, whose questions have focused on recent Supreme Court decisions back home and on the whereabouts of secrets-leaker Edward Snowden.

“I know that millet and maize and fertilizer doesn’t always make for sexy copy,” he said. He asked a farmer at a display booth to show reporters some of his rice. “These are some city people,” he said of the reporters. Then teased them, as if imparting a lesson: “This is where rice comes from.”

As for the rice, he said he’d like to see it served at the White House. “We’ll have the White House chef whip it up,” he said.

Nedra Pickler

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