Gates' Annual Letter: Make Choices to Help Poor People Become Self-Sufficient

"My annual letter this year is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency," said Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft Company and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Sharing his thoughts for 2012, Gates notes that "We can be more innovative about delivering solutions that already exist to the farmers who need them. We can also discover new approaches and create new tools to fundamentally transform farmers' lives." Gates mentioned that an important revolution based on understanding plant genes will greatly accelerate the pace of plant research.

But Gates warned that "we won't advance if we don't continue to fund agricultural innovation, and I am very worried about where those funds will come from in the current economic and political climate." He concluded that: "The relatively small amount of money invested in development has changed the future prospects of billions of people—and it can do the same for billions more if we make the choice to continue investing in innovation."

For the full letter check out http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter/2012/Pages/home-en.aspx