He Yam What He Yam

It's good to see the Gates Foundation making a real difference in people's lives.  Long before there were microloans, there were microfarms.  Or, what the rest of us would call "growing your own crops to eat."  It may be the newest wave in hipster urban sustainability, but for African nations like Ghana, it's life and death.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave a $12-million (nine-million-euro) grant Monday to a project aimed at boosting yam production and doubling the income of west African farmers of the crop.

It is the foundation’s largest grant for yam production anywhere in the world, said a spokesman of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria’s southwest city of Ibadan.


The project’s initial focus is on 200,000 smallholder farm families in Ghana and Nigeria, 90 percent of whom cultivate less than two acres, the institute said in a statement.

Basic pest and disease control in situations like this can dramatically improve crop yields, and where people need to eat what they grow in order to live, it's the best $12 million spent.  Considering how much the US spends on agriculture in a year, it's refreshing to see something like this done to help tens of thousands.

Good on them.