Bill Gates moves his attention from disease control to the global food shortage – Part 1

Ever since leaving the position of Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft, the co-founder of company, Bill Gates has devoted his full strengths to making the world a better place. He and his wife, Malinda Gates run a namesake non-profit organization, Bill and Malinda Gates Foundations, which has the dogma of eradicating chronic diseases from the world. Polio is on the top of their To-Do list and currently the couple is working on the aforesaid project in Africa.

However, in current reports and an annual letter made public, Gates has clear mentioned the dearth of finances and lack of research in certain fields. His NGO is the biggest platform dedicated to the betterment of the poor’s living standard. However, even Gates and company are facing constraints in the process. BMG has an endowment of $36 Billion and around $25 Billion is dedicated to the elimination of diseases from the backward regions of the world where health care is either insufficient or too expensive.

However, Gates’ span of humanitarian work is not limited to humans but food scarcity as well. As it happens, Africa is facing the world food shortage in the world. Majority of the population is living under the poverty line and is suffering from starvations.

Most staggering is the factor that farmers, who provide the world with food are unsure whether they will get the next meal in the day or not. Although Polio and other diseases are as important to be considered, the world food problem cannot be overlooked.

Gates, in his letter, brought the shortage of food products and crops into the attention especially rice, wheat, and corn, and urged to bring the 1960s and 70s’ Green Revolution to overcome the paucity. His amazement was clear in his letter when he mentioned that only a meagre amount is spent on research in agriculture. Only $3 Billion is spent annually on these activities, out of which $1.3 Billion is spent by governments, $1.2 Billion by private organizations like Monsanto and Syngenta, and $300 million by an agency called the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Gates beseeched the world for more attention to the matter.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Jan 25 2012. Filed under Africa, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.