The Challenge
Three-quarters of the world's poorest people—the 1 billion who live on $1 a day or less—rely on agriculture to feed themselves and their families. Many small farmers in the developing world cannot grow enough food for their own needs.
There are more than 820 million hungry people in the world, and this number is growing every year. Malnutrition leads to stunted physical and mental development in children, and it increases their susceptibly to disease. Malnourished children are likely to miss school, and sick, hungry adults often have to miss work and lose income. Women, who make up the majority of small farmers in many areas and often have the fewest resources, are particularly affected. For hundreds of millions of people around the world, hunger is the root cause of hopelessness.
Almost no country has managed a rapid rise from poverty without increasing agricultural productivity. We know that success is possible. In the 1940s through the 1970s, countries, donors, and scientists embraced efforts to increase the crop yields of farmers in the developing world. The resulting "Green Revolution" in Latin America and much of Asia doubled the amount of food produced, saved hundreds of millions of lives, and—while in some areas it had unintended negative consequences, including environmental damage and increased inequity—laid the groundwork for broader development in numerous countries.
One dilemma posed by such a rapid and sweeping success is that it contributed to more stress on the environment (excess fertilizer in particular) and was less beneficial for marginal farmers without irrigation and access to other infrastructure. We intend to learn from this and aspire to achieve a similar scale of impact with more attention to marginal farmers and less pressure on the environment.
Today in many parts of the developing world, agricultural productivity is stagnant or declining, with small-scale, impoverished farmers often lacking access to appropriate technologies, efficient farming practices, and links to markets. Most agricultural research does not take into account the needs of the poor, and over the past few decades there has been a steady decline in private and public funding to support these efforts.
The Hope
The foundation is working to break these cycles of hunger and poverty by providing small farmers with the tools and opportunities to boost their productivity, increase their incomes, and build better lives for themselves and their families.
Working with a wide range of partners, we are seeking to enhance the complete agricultural value chain—from planting the highest quality seeds and improving farm management practices to bringing crops to market—while protecting farmers' natural environments.
A particular focus is our support, in a partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which brings a wide range of African partners together to spearhead new agricultural programs for small farmers across the continent. As we do so, we are working to learn from the past, particularly the successes and challenges of the original Green Revolution, which dramatically increased food production but suffered from weaknesses such as an over-reliance on chemical fertilizer and poor water management.
Our work is squarely focused on the needs small-scale farm households, which often means it is focused on women. Women do much of the work on small farms around the world, and their wellbeing and income directly affect nutritional and educational outcomes for children.
We invest across the agricultural value chain, from planting quality seeds and improving farm management practices to bringing crops to market. It is critical to help small farmers get appropriate inputs—soil, seeds, water, and fertilizer—to make their land productive as possible while protecting natural resources. We also want to make sure that crops are harvested and that farmers can get their products to markets to earn income. We hope to eventually leverage the successes of individual farmers to benefit whole economies and accelerate development. Facilitating market access, both local and global, will help farmers earn income, give consumers more choices, and improve community and national food security.
Grants
For more information on our current Agricultural Development grants, please see page three of our fact sheet (204 KB PDF).