Bill Gates Foundation Donates $25M to Fight Hunger

Bill Gates Foundation Donates $25M to Fight Hunger

SEATTLE--The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundationdonated $25 million to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)to research genetically modified (GM) foods to help malnourished people indeveloping countries. HarvestPlus (www.harvestplus.org), a globalalliance of research institutes and agencies to breed and disseminate cropsfor better nutrition, will lead the $50 million project, half of which iscovered by the grant. The project focuses on biofortification, a type of cropbreeding that raises levels of nutrients (such as zinc, iron and vitamin A) incrops, whereas traditional crop breeding has focused on improving crop yield orenhancing environmental sustainability, according to the foundation (www.gatesfoundation.org).Widely consumed crops like rice, corn, wheat and sweet potato will be the firstto be developed. The foundation hopes that the other $25 million will come fromgrants from the World Bank, USAID and Denmark, with the remaining 10 percentfrom a number of potential donors.