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Soaring world food prices, climate change and the collapse of the World Trade talks have put millions of Africans at risk of extreme poverty, it was warned today.

International development agency Self-Help Africa said the poverty crisis will worsen unless communities are taught to be self-sufficient.

The organisation, launched today by Minister for Overseas Development Peter Power, was formed after Irish charity Self Help and the UK agency Harvest Help amalgamated.

Both groups have been working for the past 25 years implementing programmes to allow rural Africans grow enough food to earn a living.

Chief executive Ray Jordan said efforts by native Africans to trade their way out of poverty was being undermined by hikes in transport costs, population growth and the use of land to produce bio-fuels.

“There is a growing acceptance that farming and rural development is the key if Africans are to break free from hunger and poverty,” he said.

“Up to 80 per cent of Africans rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. It must be at the heart of what we do," he said. "At Self Help Africa we are committed to providing communities across the continent with the skills and the very basic resources, so that they can adapt to these challenges.”

Mr Power said both organisations - Self Help, which has received funding from Irish Aid, and Harvest Help – play a central role in assisting farming and rural development in Africa.

The new agency will work in nine African countries - Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Togo and Zambia.

It has no expatriate staff in the field but instead employs local people and works through partners and communities on all its projects, with a staff of just 10 in Ireland and seven in the UK.

They provide support by coming up with improvements to farming, managing natural resources and helping people access basic services like clean water, healthcare and education.

Self Help Development International was set up in Ireland in 1984 in response to the famine in Ethiopia.

One of its first sources of major investment was Bob Geldof’s Band Aid Trust, which provided more than $1 million to carry out a rural development project in Ethiopia.

Harvest Help was established in the United Kingdom following a wave of droughts in Zambia in 1985.