Bill Gates 2012 Annual Letter focuses on ‘Innovation in Agriculture’

Christina Mwinjipe inspects her cassava crop (Mapinga Village, Tanzania, 2012).

“My annual letter this year is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency.” Bill Gates

For Christina and other small farmers—and for hundreds of millions of extremely poor people living in slums in big cities—getting food is the most pressing daily concern. And food is strongly connected to another constant worry: basic health. The lack of adequate nutrition is a key reason why poor children so often die of diseases like diarrhea that richer and better-fed children are able to fight off. Poor nutrition in childhood also prevents the development of both the brain and the body, severely and irreversibly limiting children’s ability to grow, learn, and become healthy, productive adults. Ultimately, there is very little in Christina’s life—or her children’s lives—that doesn’t depend on her cassava crop.

Farming is a great example of something critical to the poor that gets very little attention in rich countries. Back in the 19th century, the majority of people in the United States worked in agriculture. Now less than 2 percent of the workforce is involved in farming, and less than 15 percent of U.S. consumer spending goes to food. Farming issues rarely make the news. The exceptions are when food is contaminated, when government subsidies are being debated, or when there is a famine like the current one in the Horn of Africa.

See 2012 Annual Letter From Bill Gates here.