Local agriculture in developing nations will get a boost under an initiative unveiled Wednesday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and United Nations World Food Program. Under the Purchase for Progress initiative, the WFP will supplement food aid with surplus crops bought at competitive prices from poor farmers. WFP currently purchases 80 percent of its food in developing countries, but only a very small amount of that comes directly from small farmers. Starting as a five-year trial program, Purchase for Progress aims to raise the incomes of 350,000 farmers in 21 countries. "Developing new ways for WFP to purchase food locally represents a major step toward sustainable change that could eventually benefit millions of poor rural households in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions," Bill Gates said. Adds WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran, "The world's poor are reeling under the impact of high food and fuel prices, and buying food assistance from developing world farmers is the right solution at the right time."
source: The Washington Post, Seattle Times, USA Today, The Guardian, Reuters
EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity
Do diesel-based farmers dream of electric tractors?
Comments
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archigeek Posted 11:01 pm
25 Sep 2008
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Jonas Posted 11:41 pm
25 Sep 2008
But then, if inspiration comes from such a catastrophic, corrupt organisation like the WFP, which is responsible for the death of millions of people by keeping them dependent on subsidized Euro-American food, then we shouldn't be surprized.
Gates can't always be right. This time, he's obviously very wrong.
What developing countries need is a rapid emigration from the country-side to efficient cities (this slashes fertility rates instantly), and the creation of an efficient farming class which makes the most optimal use of land and resources.
Africa should not be the fantasy screen on which Euro-Americans get to project their racist ideas, like the idea that rural village life, with natives living in perfect enjoyable misery, growing local food and suffering because of it, is somehow idyllic.
Thank God, the Chinese and the Indians and the Middle Eastern investors who are pouring into Africa don't share the Euro-American racist romanticism and exoticism that is so typical of "charitable" Euro-Americans, and instead they go about rationally, helping Africans urbanize and go large-scale, efficient on their agriculture.
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DannyGirl Posted 4:32 am
26 Sep 2008
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DannyGirl Posted 4:43 am
26 Sep 2008
Take note: EVERYONE on earth is racist to some extent or other. The reality is that it's mainly in "white"-dominated, educated and financially stable areas where racism has eroded and been challenged to any extent at all. Every culture on earth has prejudice against a stable of other humans, with no exceptions.
I trust the Gates Founcations WAY more to do good in Africa than Chinese, Indian or Middle Eastern investors. WAY MORE.
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Paleocon Posted 7:39 am
26 Sep 2008
Liberals won't let dark skinned people use DDT to save their children from malaria. "Let them sleep in nets" is the mantra. So millions die every year.
It is shocking how liberals think blacks need to be rounded up into ghettos. "Urbanize them", says the liberal. Then they'll stop breeding?
Liberals see Africans as locusts who threaten the flora and fauna. A Manhattanite writes a check, and an HK91 wielding "elephant security guard" kills another African trying to feed his family.
Shame on you.
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Biodiversivist Posted 9:39 am
26 Sep 2008
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/10/14/123559/84
Us smart guys gots to stick together or these fast talkin' liberals are gonna be marryin' our daughters.
The HK91 is a beautiful weapon for shootin' elephants wiff by the way. Liberals think poachers are after the ivory. They's after the meat! Let em eat the got damn elephants! Theys just tryin' to feed their familys ...I'm tearin' up here.
I were at the fair this summer and took sum pitchurs of the Repuglican booth, which i has posted below:
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/photo/gun1.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/photo/gun2.jpg
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TimDunn Posted 10:06 am
26 Sep 2008
http://biogreenproducts.biz/whyoxo.html
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Paleocon Posted 9:28 am
27 Sep 2008
I am sure that plays well among the Big Environment leeches that suckle at the government teat for sustenance and demand that their women "split the check" and work while someone else raises their child from 6 weeks on.
No fears about liberals here.
Just concerned about the damage their ideas do to society when they are given access to my checkbook.
Fact:
DDT can save lives in areas where Malaria is a problem, but liberals push to ban it's use. Then they ask for funds to provide sleeping nets.
http://www.nothingbutnets.net/
http://www.nothingbutnets.net/blogs/sen-obama-pledges-to. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/16/world/africa/16malaria. ...
Fact:
Liberal Enviro-dollars pay for patrols that shoot and kill humans to protect animals.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/09/0924_0209 ...
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:29 am
28 Sep 2008
Just concerned about the damage their ideas do to society when they are given access to my checkbook.
Yes, well, you and I are both having our checkbooks heavily accessed to fund a war started by a conservative either by accident (gross incompetency) or under deliberately false pretenses. Impeachable offenses in either case.
Is Condoleezza Rice evidence of the "damage their ideas do to society?" She has her job thanks in part to those who risked their lives riding buses in the south to protest segregation in the '60s. Those weren't liberals on the outside throwing rocks at the buses. After thanking them she can thank the suffrajets from the '20s who were imprisoned by interests attempting to "conserve" the status quo when they protested for the right to vote. Not only can Palin vote, but Rice and Obama don't have to ride to work everyday in the back of a bus all thanks to those bleeding heart liberals and the damage their ideas have done to our society.
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Paleocon Posted 12:48 pm
28 Sep 2008
There must be a lack of the "Anolo-gene" in liberal DNA.
You equate questioning the judgement of withholding DDT from Africans with denying African-Americans and women the right to vote?
But first, you assume that I would have a problem with a daughter or son marrying someone of the same sex if that was their orientation? Gay? In love? Get freaking married if you want to. Adopt children. Create a family. That is what makes for a better world.
I think it is great that liberals did great things 50 years ago. But that was then. Time to get out of the 60s.
Today liberalism is about class envy and wealth redistribution.
The United States engaged in a preemptive strategy to go after the next most likely threat after 9-11. Iraq acted like someone hell bent on "suicide by cop" based upon it's behavior. Liberals believed that we deserved 9-11 but they had to bite their tongues and stifle their hatred for this country because even they couldn't argue with the whole WMD issue. Nothing else mattered to liberals. Just the WMDs. They were the only things keeping liberals from admitting what they really felt. That is why liberals are so furious about Iraq. When no WMDs were found, they realized that they could have been having F U S A! rallies the whole time. They feel like they were raped. Forced to hide their hatred and wave little American flags. The jury is still out on Iraq. Adults understand this. There have been no attacks on the homeland (I don't like that term, by the way). The point of going over there was to take the fight to the enemy. We have succeeded beyond anyone's expectations. Dead soldiers does not equal "losing a war". It is a price.
Much, much lower than the price in human life and suffering visited upon millions in Africa each year who are prohibited by liberalism from simply spraying their homes with DDT.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:54 am
29 Sep 2008
You equate questioning the judgement of withholding DDT from Africans with denying African-Americans and women the right to vote?
No. That's a strawman but nice try. The DDT issue is an international one and has been addressed by the link provided. Your arguments are built on a house of cards. It isn't an issue that splits along "conservative and liberal" lines. Most African countries are not as divided along "liberal and conservative" lines and the European definition of "liberal" is totally different from the various definitions you'll find for American liberalism. Also, American conservationists tend to be pretty conservative. Searching the Internet for links by fellow conspiracy theorists blaming "liberals" for malaria, or aliens for hemorrhoids for that matter, has become a time-honored activity.
But first, you assume that I would have a problem with a daughter or son marrying someone of the same sex if that was their orientation? Gay? In love? Get freaking married if you want to. Adopt children. Create a family.
That's another strawman. You assumed that was my assumption. I was suggesting a way to make it easier for you to keep your daughters from marrying a liberal by showing you how other conservatives have used the government to keep their daughters from marrying other women.
I think it is great that liberals did great things 50 years ago. But that was then. Time to get out of the 60s
The best progressive ideals become accepted as cultural norms. The not so good ones don't. Eventually conservative elements claim the ideals as their own and begin conserving them in their typically conservative way. The role conservative elements play is to slow down the implementation of new ideas, which gives time for reflection and critique. Your contention that progressive idea generation started and stopped in the sixties is ludicrous. Progressives have always been around and will always press for improvement, as change is the only constant in this world. I used the gay marriage issue as a recent and obvious example.
By the way, I'm not a liberal, so when you rail at liberals, you are railing at somebody other than myself. But don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not a conservative. That may be a tough concept for someone who thinks the world is populated by two kinds of people--liberals and conservatives.
There is no such thing as a 100% pure liberal or conservative. And to make matters worse, there is no universally accepted definition for either one. And to ice the cake, the definition of both change with time. So, railing against liberals (or environmentalists for that matter) becomes the act of sticking a label on pretty much anyone with a point of view that differs from your own. It's a simplistic and inaccurate worldview that foments endless, intractable conflict.
When radical liberals and radical conservatives are placed on a semicircular scale they sit right next to one another while the rest of us hang out on the far side of the semi-circle. Your rationalizations regarding the Iraq war stick a pin in you with a big label on the end of it. Your self-identity--paleo (old) con (conservative)-- is wrapped up in a false concept of a world split into two basic groups. When I heard our president say that Iraq had Nuclear weapons I begrudgingly agreed that we had to get them out of Hussein's hands. When I later found out he was either lying or had taken us to war by accident, I was understandably disappointed in his leadership and would have been so had he been a Democrat. I will never forgive Clinton for his lack of moral fortitude, which was probably the straw that put Uncurious George in office. You were at one point beside yourself with great expectations as you watched the hunt for the WMDs. When none were found, rather than critique Bush, you simply hunted around for new rationalizations.
The United States engaged in a preemptive strategy to go after the next most likely threat after 9-11
Preemptive strategy war. As commander in chief, Bush not only failed to protect the Twin Towers, he launched a preemptive war against a country that didn't have a single tank in operating condition when invaded and had nothing to do with 9/11. Yosemite Sam has diminished and degraded us in the eyes of the world with that move, driven us into debt, and helped wreck our economy.
Liberals believed that we deserved 9-11...
...had to bite their tongues and stifle their hatred for this country ...
When no WMDs were found, they realized that they could have been having F U S A [Fuck the United States of America]! rallies the whole time.
They feel like they were raped.
Forced to hide their hatred and wave little American flags
These liberals you describe are figments of your imagination. You're railing at shadows.
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Paleocon Posted 4:35 am
29 Sep 2008
It is the idea that is fodder for categorization, not the person. I would wager that you are a great person. Just misguided and under educated.
Words mean things and that meaning is affected by context. The meaning of "liberally" on the back of a bottle of sunscreen is not relevant here.
Back to the topic at hand. Let's see if you can spot liberal views.
Liberal or Conservative?
"We need to support local, sustainable, organic farms. Corporate Farming is killing the planet."
Liberal or Conservative?
"Large scale farming is the most efficient method to produce food with a given amount of resources."
"Bush failed to protect the twin towers...."
From who? Israel? tell us what you really think.
"...diminished and degraded us in the eyes of the world..."
The eyes of the world? What about the nose of the world? Concern about what others think about you is a juvenile (liberal) affliction. I don't care what Mahmūd Ahmadinejād thinks about us. I wonder if Jews wrung their hands and asked "Why do the Nazis hate us so much?" Envy and spite are emotions that liberals can relate to. It fuels class envy...the font of Democrat power.
Here is my peace offering:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcher_plant
I think we can agree that this is an example of the miraculous diversity worth preserving?
;-)
Look, Obama is going to be the next President...my family is going to be raped financially. We will no longer be able to save for our kid's education. That money is going to the government to fund programs we will never qualify for. That will make liberals feel good. They won't be better off, but it will make them happy that I will be worse off.
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