Absentee agriculture also bolsters national pride and pride in traditional diets by specializing in vegetables specific to the region. For too long our country has been flooded with imported food and Westernized foods, Wangari says.

The measure, based on Israel's Absentee Property Law , which has repeatedly been invoked to facilitate the seizure of Palestinian homes and land since 1950, is intended to prevent the use of these lands by their owners and transfer ownership to the occupying Power.

Wangari is one of thousands of urban workers in Kenya and one of hundreds of thousands, even millions, across Africa who are increasing their incomes through absentee agriculture. With prices for basic foodstuffs at their highest levels in decades, many urbanites feel well rewarded by farming.

The Working Group recommends that States promote educational programmes within primary and secondary schools on the mechanics of voting within their territories (such as providing instruction on the use of a polling machine or voting via absentee ballot) to encourage voting by a greater number of people of African descent.

Perhaps the most visible political support for absentee agriculture is in Liberia, a small West African country where civil war destroyed agriculture, rendering the population dependent on food imports, even today. President Johnson Sirleaf, recognizing that educated people could contribute much to an agriculture revival, launched her Back to the Soil campaign in June 2008 in large part to encourage urban dwellers to farm.