Philanthropist Bill Gates recently tried to remind G20 leaders at Cannes not to forget the world's poor and to resist the urge (or voter pressure) to cut aid budgets. Aid in developed countries is already less than 1% of GDP, yet as Gates points out, many aid-cynics believe that is already too much.
Complacency and bad policy making has led to constant cuts to agricultural research too. The world's seven main crops now attract just US$3 billion a year in research funding -- a pittance given the importance of those crops to human survival, and given the rapidly changing supply and demand equation. Yield growth has been outpaced by population growth, and the need for a second Green Revolution seems to have so far escaped the G20 big hitters.
Gates' annual letter makes a strong case for more aid spending [http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter/2012/Pages/home-en.aspx], for redeploying the genomics tools developed in human medicine to agricultural development, and he makes a strong case for viewing aid for developing nations as necessary for humanity as whole.
"We can help poor farmers
sustainably increase their
productivity so they can feed
themselves and their families.
But that will only happen if we
prioritize agricultural innovation."
- bill gates
sustainably increase their
productivity so they can feed
themselves and their families.
But that will only happen if we
prioritize agricultural innovation."
- bill gates
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