Ending Poverity by Advancing Prosperity- an Idea whose time has come at last!

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Re: Ending Poverty by Advancing Prosperity- An Idea whose time has come at last!


Commercial Farming the pathway for Eliminating poverty with pros
Submitted by Globalbelai7 on Thu, 2009-10-22 17:21.
Dear Shanta:


I am amazed by your daring admission that Ending Poverty or creating wealth is the only solution to African's problem with poverty.


Poverty Reduction is a voodu science designed to starve Africans for a long time to come. Did you see European Union Agricultural Policy being developed on reducing poverty? For that matter is the Green Revolution in India based on increasing productivity or ending poverty?


It is interesting at last you seem to have got the idea, that wealth creation and building prosperity is the only solution to impending abject poverty. How can you reduce poverty? Can you really quantify poverty at the level where you can show you can reduce it.


Why not eliminate it with creating wealth and prosperity?


The old and outdated approach by the World Bank and IMF to postpone prosperity by reducing poverty is a bankrupt ideology that has no evidence based science but a rather cruel way of keeping Africans starving.


The latest work by Dr Gebissa Ejeta of Purdue University and the World Food Prize for 2009 indicate that if African Farmers are enabled with technology and are allowed to begin farming in a commercial way with increased cooperatives and the like, they will improve their productivity and eventual wealth creation.


The current system of micro-farming based subsistance farming is a recipe for disaster.


So, more than the farming technology, it is the Macro-Economics and lack of investment in Commercial Farming that is making poverty a substance of interest and perpetual failure by the Bank and IMF and similar bodies who do not seem to approach the problem with evidence based science.


All their structural adjustment and and conditionality is nothing but voodu science being played out by disconnected and callous economists and their supportive World Bank Governors and Donors.


it is time to look at the research carefully, and most importantly listen to the local governments and farmers on what works for them.


For once let Washington and the Economist listen to the farmers and science.


Please read the attahed interesting story about the work of Dr Gebissa Ejea for your additional information.


Belai H Jesus, MD, MPH
www.globalbelai7.blogspot.com
Globalbelai7@gmail.com


Ethiopian Sorghum Breeder Wins 2009 World Food Prize
By Steve Baragona
Washington
15 October 2009
Baragona Report - Download (MP3)
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The World Food Prize is the top international award for individuals who have increased the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world


The 2009 World Food Prize has been awarded to Gebisa Ejeta, an Ethiopian-born plant scientist at Purdue University. The private, $250,000 award -- presented at ceremonies in Des Moines, Iowa, October 15th -- is given annually to people who have helped address the world's food needs. This year's prize honors Ejeta's life-long work to improve the production of sorghum, one of the world's most important grain crops. It also honors his efforts to take his discoveries beyond the lab -- to the farmers who need them the most.


Desire to help others rooted in his own childhood poverty


Ejeta is one of those success stories that show the difference an education -- and a motivated mother -- can make. Ejeta grew up in a one-room thatched hut in rural Ethiopia. But he says his mother had other plans for him.


"She didn't care much for the lifestyle in the community that we lived in," Ejita recalls. "And for some strange reason, this woman was able to see that through education one can get out of this drudgery and get to a better life."


So she found opportunities for Ejeta to study, and a place to stay, in a neighboring town, a 20-kilometer walk away. Ejeta studied. He excelled. And now he is being honored for his life's work helping others rise out of poverty.


Lowell Hardin is an emeritus professor at Purdue University who has known Ejeta for 25 years. "Because he grew up in very, very modest circumstances -- a single mother in a remote village in Ethiopia -- he knew poverty," Hardin says. "He knew hunger. And when he was fortunate enough to get an education thanks to his mother's pushing, he decided he was going to apply his talents in this direction."


Research efforts focused on threats to African food crops


Gebisa Ejeta received World Food Prize for his efforts to improve sorghum production
Ejeta applied his talents to fighting a weed called Striga, or witchweed, which threatens crops that feed more than 100 million people across sub-Saharan Africa. Ejeta says the parasitic weed can ruin fields of sorghum, a major staple in hot, dry regions of Africa.


"If you grow a crop that is susceptible to infection by the parasite," he says, "you just basically don't have any chance for growing a crop if your soil is contaminated. And most of these soils are getting contaminated."


Before Ejeta took up the challenge, researchers hadn't had much success controlling the weed. Its seeds can lie dormant in the soil for decades. But Ejeta and his team at Purdue University discovered the chemical signals produced by the sorghum plant that tell the Striga seeds to wake up -- that a victim is available. They then found sorghum varieties that didn't produce the signals, and bred a line of Striga-resistant plants that thrived in a broad range of African growing conditions. These new varieties produced up to four times more grain than local types, even in drought-plagued areas.


Making sure African farmers benefit directly from his research


But Ejeta knew the research breakthrough was just the beginning. Once the new variety was developed in 1994, he worked with non-profit groups to distribute eight tons of seed to farmers in twelve African nations.


That's typical of Gebisa Ejeta, according to his colleague at Purdue, Mitch Tuinstra.


"One of the most important things about Gebisa's work is that he always carries it to the next level," Tuinstra says. "Which is, 'How do I translate the products of this research into technologies that empower and strengthen farmers in Africa?'"


Ejeta's new varieties of sorghum resist drought and the weed Striga
Ejeta has always understood the importance of getting technology into the hands of African farmers. Just out of graduate school, Ejeta bred a high-yielding, drought-tolerant variety of sorghum. When the new hybrid variety was introduced in 1983, Ejeta says farmers were thrilled to find it yielded more than double what traditional varieties produced.


"They thought it was fantastic that they were getting this kind of performance with this hybrid," he says. "And so, the initial response was, 'How can we get seed?'"


That is a critical question: Who will produce and deliver high-yielding seeds to farmers who need them, when there is no viable seed industry?


Ejeta was able to work with Sudanese farmers' cooperatives to scale up production of his drought-resistant sorghum.


But much of Africa still lacks a seed industry to get improved varieties to farmers. And farmers often don't have access to markets to sell the products of their improved harvests. So today, Ejeta is working to develop the market from the ground up. For example, along with local partners he connects brewers, bakers, and flour millers with farmers growing the improved sorghum. By working along the entire chain, from farmers' seeds to consumers' plates, his work is helping to lift people out of poverty - and providing a powerful weapon in the war on hunger.