Science - December 12, 2011

Three million more for Giller's Africa project

The Howard G. Buffett Foundation will give 2 million dollars to the N2Africa project of Wageningen professor Ken Giller, which aims to improve soil fertility and food production in Africa. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will support the project with another 1.3 million dollars.

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Howard G. Buffet is the eldest son of the American top investor and billionaire Warren Buffett. Like Bill Gates, he contributes large sums of money to agricultural development programmes in Africa. Two years ago, the Gates Foundation gave 17 million dollars to Giller's programme, which focuses mainly on improving nitrogen fixation in legume plants. Its application has given many African countries bigger harvests and better soils.
Giller's project is about cultivating legumes in eight African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. With the support from the Buffett family, which makes much of its philanthropic contributions via the Gates Foundation, the project can now also be implemented in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The Buffett Foundation uses its investment to link the work being carried out by Giller to another project in these countries which focuses on improving agricultural seeds.
In the N2Africa project, Giller works together with a consortium of research and development organizations in Africa. The project aims to improve the living standard of 200,000 small farmers in Africa.