You may never have heard of the Add Value to Agriculture Initiative, but on the campaign trail Barack Obama said that the program would do a lot to help farmers in impoverished countries.
 
Flash forward to December 2009, and the AVTA is nowhere to be found.
 
But that's not to say the Obama administration hasn't been working toward the same goals outlined on the campaign trail.
 
For instance, during a meeting of the Group of 8 last summer, Obama pledged $20 billion to combat global hunger. About $3.5 billion over the next three years will be used to invest in agricultural development and nutrition in the poorest countries, according to the White House.
 
That commitment is part of a larger strategy to work with the private sector, nongovernmental organizations and voluntary organizations to improve agricultural research, food safety and nutrition, according to the White House.

And on Oct. 8, 2009, the USDA launched the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery in the agricultural sciences, and to speed the application of these discoveries to the global food crisis.
 
So, the White House says Obama has ditched the AVTA acronym, but is pursuing the same goals for improving world hunger that he spoke about on the campaign trail. As a result, we give him a Promise Kept.