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Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

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Re: Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

#21

Post by berntb »

lsd5you wrote: post #18

I don't mean to be an idiot, but at this point all life saving charity should aim to secure a reduction in population growth to offset the lives saved. Being merely a humanitarian is a moral luxury with an environmental cost.

Well, the only (+) way we know to lower population increase is urbanization and increased living standard. So democracy and industrialization are the ways forward on the population bomb.

Arguably, Gates' grants works towards that. It will result in better agriculture, in the future leading to mechanization -- which means people moving to cities.

(+) Let us leave discussions of e.g. reintroducing the plague to Al Qaeda. 1/2 :-)

Edit: I might add that I think human lives are worth the environment, inside sane limits. Pollution go down with increased wealth, anyway.

Re: Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

#22

Post by [deleted] »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #16

If anything, they should look into supporting the One Acre Fund. http://www.oneacrefund.org/our_results/program_dashboard They are doing an incredible job and and a question and answer session about their work can be found here: http://globalswadeshi.ning.com/forum/topics/global-swadeshi-...

[deleted]

Re: Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

#23

Post by bjelkeman-again »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #16

If anything, they should look into supporting the One Acre Fund. http://www.oneacrefund.org/our_results/program_dashboard They are doing an incredible job and and a question and answer session about their work can be found here: http://globalswadeshi.ning.com/forum/topics/global-swadeshi-...

Some more info on the One Acre Fund.

The One Acre Fund a group operating in Africa doing incredible work: doubled food production, halved (or better) infant mortality, as shown below. Sample size was 4000 farms, now they are involved with 12000 farms.

Re: Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

#24

Post by fauigerzigerk »

lsd5you wrote: post #18

I don't mean to be an idiot, but at this point all life saving charity should aim to secure a reduction in population growth to offset the lives saved. Being merely a humanitarian is a moral luxury with an environmental cost.

Increased wealth has always led to reduced population growth and sometimes to a declining population.

Re: Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

#25

Post by fauigerzigerk »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #7

He doesn't say what area or which country but I spent a few weeks in Burkina Faso in West Africa. ( it will rank as one of the poorest countries in the world) I hung out with a friend who was working on a food security program for a US based NGO, so I have a good idea about the current conditions. The farmers are trying to grow crops in terrible conditions and I don't think any amount of money is going to help them.…

I don't understand your argument. There are farmers trying to grow food on dry, possibly salty, soil without infrastructure, without fertilizer, without much irrigation, without knowledge of modern agricultural methods, without access to good seeds, and you're saying better methods and better infrastructure, more knowledge, etc would not help them? Why not?

Re: Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

#26

Post by mncaudill »

known wrote: post #17

There is no Corruption-Free delivery system in India because 85% Indians do not have any Bank Accounts. http://tr.im/kJHv And this is the way Indian Leadership will keep its Voters SUBSERVIENT.

It's all about the Benjamins, sadly.

Re: Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

#28

Post by TheElder »

I used to admire such humanitarian actions, but I've come to question the effectiveness of it. Bill Gates, and many others in the West like him, want to prevent suffering in the world, and I admire that, but I think it might actually create more suffering by creating means for more people to survive and create more offspring who in turn end up being just as poor, suffering just as much, creating an even bigger humanitarian crisis.

Re: Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

#29

Post by bjelkeman-again »

indranil wrote: post #10

Why does the news always only cover the "pledging" and not follow up with how/when and if at all that pledge and subsequent giving has helped the people they were supposed to help?

Maybe we could convince them to use a system like http://akvo.org which has reporting tools from projects that have been funded. Soon we will have SMS field reporting tools as well, so you don't even need an internet connection to do it.

Disclosure: Yeah, I am a cofounder of Akvo.org.

Re: Bill Gates pledges 120 million to boost African, Indian farmers

#30

Post by forinti »

TheElder wrote: post #28

I used to admire such humanitarian actions, but I've come to question the effectiveness of it. Bill Gates, and many others in the West like him, want to prevent suffering in the world, and I admire that, but I think it might actually create more suffering by creating means for more people to survive and create more offspring who in turn end up being just as poor, suffering just as much, creating an even bigger humani…

What we have now is the product of exactly what you are advocating: doing nothing. So how do you think it will get better?
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