Biotech Updates

FAO and Bill Gates Cooperate on Anti-Hunger Efforts

March 2, 2012

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director General Dr. Graziano da Silva and Bill Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation, both agree that one of the keys to reduce hunger, malnutrition and extreme poverty is for the stakeholders to have greater access to information, innovation and strong cooperation. Thus, a dialogue was held between the two heads to improve agricultural data systems in order to boost support to smallholder farmers in the fight against hunger.

The areas of collaboration include improving agricultural statistics, use of communication and information technologies to benefit agriculture as a whole, and small-scale farmers in particular, in addition to supporting the development of a scorecard system.

Gates opined that "more productive small farmers are the key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals on hunger and poverty. If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture."

See the news at http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/123766/icode/