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An excerpt from an October 8, 2006 editorial by Dean Kleckner on AgWeb.com
The marriage of the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations sends a clear signal that biotechnology has much to offer even the poorest people on the planet
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Last month, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would devote $100 million to African agriculture over the next five years, in combination with a decision by the Rockefeller Foundation to chip in an additional $50 million. They have the ambition of sparking a Green Revolution on the continent that more or less missed the first one.
Africa deserves for them to succeed. It is a blighted land--torn by war, ravaged by disease, and plagued by hunger. In no other place has food production actually decreased in recent years.
Addressing these problems is a worthy project for two titans of philanthropy. The Gates Foundation is the world’s richest philanthropy, following Warren Buffett’s pledge of $31 billion earlier this year; the Rockefeller Foundation, a behemoth in its own right, was crucial in supporting the first Green Revolution.
This time, biotechnology will need to play a key role: The 21st-century’s Green Revolution must also be a Gene Revolution. To be really successful, it will have to be.
The first Green Revolution transformed agriculture in the developing world and made it possible to feed a global population that now numbers more than 6 billion. No single breakthrough was responsible for its success, but rather a medley of factors: improved irrigation, better fertilizer, superior equipment, and new varieties of seed.
Likewise, a new Green Revolution must draw upon many sources of innovation. One of these is biotechnology, which wasn’t available to the original green revolutionaries a generation ago.
Genetically modified crops won’t cure Africa ’s problems--they are no panacea. If the nations of that continent are ever to thrive, they will need to undergo serious political and economic reforms. GM foods are just one of several ingredients necessary to solving Africa ’s nutritional problems.
Yet they are an indispensable ingredient.
...the generosity of the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations will only go so far: $150 million is a relative pittance--less than the payroll of the New York Yankees. In 2005, the World Bank spent $537 million on rural development in Africa . Nations that belong to the African Union also have promised to commit a large portion of their budgets to agriculture.
But the involvement of the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations is nevertheless significant. For one thing, it represents a down payment on what may become a much larger investment. But it also carries symbolic weight. This marriage of the world’s wealthiest foundation, created by one of history’s greatest entrepreneurs, with the foundation that made so much of the first Green Revolution possible, sends a clear signal to the world that biotechnology has much to offer even the poorest people on the planet.
Let’s hope that governments now hear their message.
Dean Kleckner is an Iowa farmer, member emeritus of the World Food Prize Board of Advisors and past president of the American Farm Bureau.
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