By Seshadri Ramkumar
LUBBOCK, USA(Commodity Online): Bill Gates in his recent annual letter has alarmed the lack of funding support for agriculture research and stressed the need for innovation in agriculture. This report comes at a time when drought still prevails in Texas, the largest cotton producing state in the U.S. and India has lowered its cotton crop production for this season.
In the 2012 annual report of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, released this month, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has mentioned, “it is shocking—not to mention short-sighted and potentially dangerous—how little money is spent on agricultural research.”
The report also USDA statistics that there is a dwindling population of farmers in the developed countries like United States whereas in countries like India and Brazil, the percentage of agriculture workforce is as high as 56% in India and 21% in Brazil.
The report points to the lack of funding support for combating the increase in plant diseases and emphasizes the need for more study on the effect of climate change on agricultural productivity.
Bill Gates has insisted that world must invest in new techniques to help farmers deal with weather impacts. He has urged the agriculture community to take advantage of new tools such as genetic engineering to accelerate the pace of plant research.
Bill Gates opines innovation in agriculture and other areas is the key to improve the world. China gets positive note with regards to its effort in educating its farmers.
The annual report focused on three major themes which included Innovation in Agriculture, Global Health and United States’ Education.
(The writer is Associate Professor at Texas Tech University, USA)
