Recently, the Gates Foundation announced that it (along with the Rockefeller Foundation and others) is devoting $150 million over 5 years to helping to bring about a "Green Revolution" in Africa. It is good to see the foundation branching out somewhat from its more narrow focus on health care. Perhaps this indicates a more broad-based emphasis on the underlying cause of poverty in developing countries.

Africa, of course, did not reap the benefits of the first green revolution back in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, most African farmers use a small fraction of the fertilizer used by their Southeast Asian counterparts and often have little or no secure rights to the land they farm. For there to be a sustainable "revolution" in Africa, farmers must have access to credit and to secure and easily accessible channels of distribution. This will only happen with the support and active involvement of African governments.
One hopes that African governments will continue to reduce tariffs on the sale of fertilizer and otherwise facilitate trade with their neighbors. Land reform efforts that will give farmers legal and meaningful ownership rights to their land is critical.

Almost half of the world's people are farmers. In most, if not all, African nations, rural farming families comprise the majority of the population. A "Green Revolution" in Africa could be the most important revolution of all for the people of that continent.