"Obama’s Fantastic Boring Idea" By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF at NY Times

[applegrove]

Obama’s Fantastic Boring Idea

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF at NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/opinion/kristof-obamas-fantastic-boring-idea.html?hp

"SNIP....................................

The farm fields here are cemeteries of cornstalks: a severe drought has left them brown, withered and dead. Normally, a failed crop like that signifies starvation.

.............................................

Yet there is a better way, and it’s unfolding here in rural Malawi, in southern Africa. Instead of shipping food after the fact, the United States aid agency, U.S.A.I.D., has been working with local farmers to promote new crops and methods so that farmers don’t have to worry about starving in the first place.

Jonas Kabudula is a local farmer whose corn crop completely failed, and he said that normally he and his family would now be starving. But, with the help of a U.S.A.I.D. program, he and other farmers also planted chilies, a nontraditional crop that doesn’t need much rain.

“Other crops wither, and the chilies survive,” Kabudula told me. What’s more, each bag of chilies is worth about five bags of corn, so he and other villagers have been able to sell the chilies and buy all the food they need.

.....................................SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. I love, love, love hearing about all this r&d happening to solve africa's issues.

[elleng]

2. EXCELLENT!

'President Obama has made agriculture a focus of his foreign aid programs with mixed results. On the plus side, these initiatives are smart, cost-effective and potentially transformative. On the negative side, they’re boring. At a time when there’s a vigorous political debate in America about foreign aid, outreach to African farmers doesn’t wow Congress or the American people.

But if it’s boring, it’s also succeeding.'

[HarveyDarkey]

3. And besides

it's black people in Africa. I think we know how many murikans feel about black people.