Gates gives $120m for farms in poor nations

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it will donate a total of
$120 million in nine grants aimed at boosting agricultural production,
marketing and farming expertise in the developing world.    'Melinda
and I believe that helping the poorest small-holder farmers grow more
crops and get them to market is the world's single most powerful
lever for reducing hunger and poverty, ' Gates, the billionaire
founder of software giant Microsoft, said in remarks prepared for
delivery on Thursday to the World Food Prize annual meeting.    A
summary and excerpts from his remarks were obtained by Reuters.
'The next Green Revolution has to be greener than the first,' Gates
said in the prepared remarks. 'It must be guided by small-holder
farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the
economy and the environment.'    The World Food Prize honors
individuals each year who make significant contributions to
alleviating hunger and improving agricultural production. It was
established by Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Prize winning scientist
often called 'the father of the Green Revolution' for his work with
rice and wheat.    The Gates Foundation, which has been active in
fighting child and infectious diseases in poor countries, has
committed $1.4 billion to agricultural development efforts.    But
Gates, in his first major speech on agricultural development, called
for better coordination of aid efforts with the goal of making poor
farmers self-sustaining. The new grants show the range of efforts
needed, including investments in better seeds, training and market
access for farm goods.    Gates said progress toward alleviating
global hunger is 'endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens
to split the movement in two' in a debate between agricultural
productivity and sustainability.    'It's a false choice, and it's
dangerous for the field,' Gates said in prepared remarks. 'The fact
is, we need both productivity and sustainability - and there is no
reason we can't have both.'    The Gates Foundation is supporting
research on crops that can withstand drought and flooding so poor
farmers can adapt to climate change. It is also supporting a
ground-breaking effort with the World Food Programme to buy food
from small farmers in the developing world for food aid. WFP has
already purchased 17,000 tonnes of food from small farmers through
the program, linking many to markets for the first time.    The nine
new grants include funding for legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil,
higher- yielding varieties of sorghum and millet, and new varieties
of sweet potatoes that resist pests.