Gateses Make Hunger Pledge
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation joined the Rockefeller Foundation on Tuesday in a new plan to fight hunger in Africa, beginning with a joint $150-million pledge to improve agricultural productivity.
Officials at the two foundations said the money was just the beginning of a much bigger effort to bring the “green revolution” to Africa. In the original green revolution, the Rockefeller and Ford foundations led an effort to spread new farming technology and bring increased productivity to Latin America and Asia in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s.
Africa needs better seed varieties, more trained crop scientists, seed distribution methods, help for farmers to get their crops to market, and ways to distribute fertilizer, officials for the two foundations said.
The Gates Foundation announced in May that it would spend more to combat poverty and hunger, and Tuesday’s announcement is its first big grant in those areas.
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