"One challenge we all face is poverty, hunger and malnutrition of large populations. Therefore achieving food security at the African level should be able to address these problems. I would therefore request the AU Assembly to share the dream that five years from now no child in Africa should die of hunger and malnutrition. No child should go to bed hungry. I realize that this is an ambitious dream but one that can realized. We all know that Africa is endowed with vast fertile soils, favourable climates, vast water basins and perennial rivers that could be utilized for irrigation farming and lead to the Green Revolution, and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. We can therefore grow enough food to feed everyone in Africa. I am, therefore, proposing that our agenda for Africa should focus on agriculture and food security. I propose that our slogan should be 'Feeding Africa through New Technologies: Let Us Act Now.'"

Hopeful, if not lofty, ideas said before the Assembly of the African Union in 2010 by then Chairman of the AU and President of Malawi Bingu wa Mutharika.