The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would commit over $300 million towards efforts to help reduce hunger and poverty in Africa and South Asia.
Details from the LA Times:
The $306-million commitment over four years included $164.5 million to the Nairobi, Kenya-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, for efforts to improve soils and help small farmers boost crop yields. The Rockefeller Foundation contributed an additional $15 million to the effort.
Smaller Gates Foundation grants will assist research on hardier rice strains, provide better irrigation methods to small farmers and help develop superior coffee beans for export.
Grants totaling $48 million, to Little Rock, Ark.-based Heifer International and CARE, in Atlanta, are meant to help dairy farmers and landless peasants in East Africa and Bangladesh improve milk quality and build access to markets.
"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers," Bill Gates, co-chairman of the foundation, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
I wish I knew more details about how the money gets to the individual farmers and how this will change agricultural practices for the better, but I'm glad to see them giving to where there is a need.
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