> I haven’t focused as much on the land ownership piece as I have on the role of better seeds, fertilizers, and farming practices. This book made me to want to learn more about the land ownership picture in countries where our foundation funds work.
Seriously? By the 1990s the importance of equitable land ownership, particularly for improving productivity and generating wealth, were well documented. Heck, there were agriculturists and economists in the 1970s who predicted the famines and poverty that would befall East Africa when Western industrial agriculture methods and agricultural imports were introduced. But definitely by the 1990s the centrality of these issues should have been well understood by anybody interested in developmental economics. That Bill Gates and his billions were still focusing on fancy seeds and tilling in 2014 just boggles the mind.
Seriously? By the 1990s the importance of equitable land ownership, particularly for improving productivity and generating wealth, were well documented. Heck, there were agriculturists and economists in the 1970s who predicted the famines and poverty that would befall East Africa when Western industrial agriculture methods and agricultural imports were introduced. But definitely by the 1990s the centrality of these issues should have been well understood by anybody interested in developmental economics. That Bill Gates and his billions were still focusing on fancy seeds and tilling in 2014 just boggles the mind.