Other G8 countries lagging

Beckmann praises the Obama administration for its leadership on the issue, and says Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union are living up to the commitments they made in L'Aquila last year.

But as G8 leaders meet again in Canada this week, critics say not all of them can make that claim.

The advocacy group Oxfam says Italy, France, and the Netherlands counted existing funds as their part of the $22 billion pledge. And although the group praises the United States for putting forward new money, the group's David Waskow says, "It appears as though there's some double-counting going on, and the U.S. is counting the same pot of funds both to its L'Aquila commitments from the G8 last year and toward its Copenhagen commitments on climate."

Others point out that even $22 billion would be far less than what is needed to meet the goal nations set for themselves to cut hunger and extreme poverty in half by 2015. But there is broad agreement that it's a step in the right direction after agriculture worldwide suffered decades of neglect.