Bill Gates posted an article on his blog gatesnotes yesterday in the section “Talking dirt”, saying “I’ve never been shy about my passion for fertilizer. It’s a magical innovation that’s responsible for saving millions of lives from hunger and lifting millions more out of poverty by boosting agricultural productivity.”
Gates went on to write: “So, you can imagine my delight when I recently stepped into a warehouse in Tanzania and got a glimpse of thousands of tons of fertilizer piled as high as snow drifts. The warehouse in Dar es Salaam is part of a new fertilizer distribution center, the largest of its kind in East Africa. Watching workers fill bags with the tiny white pellets containing nitrogen, phosphorous, and other plant nutrients was a powerful reminder of how every ounce of fertilizer has the potential to transform lives in Africa.”
But that potential is only realized when it reaches the hands of the world’s poorest farmers—a challenge that’s proven difficult in Africa, where fertilizer use is very low, and, as a result, agricultural productivity is too, Gates says.
So how can a warehouse [built by global fertilizer company Yara] solve these challenges?
