When ideology gets in the way of feeding people, everybody needs to start shouting “Stop the Madness”.    Try it, it’s cathartic.

Mega-philanthropist Bill Gates is no longer busy with Microsoft.  Instead, he’s one of the key people spearheading the largest and best funded effort in history to bring better health to hundreds of millions in the developing world.    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already saved over a *million people* with their international health efforts and they are on track to save tens of millions more.

Speaking at a Food Prize conference last week Gates observed that misguided environmentalism – specifically the fight to ban genetically modified foods – threatens to thwart some very innovative food programs.

I cannot agree more emphatically although I have to be less diplomatic than Gates, because it’s imperative that we stop paying so much attention to the incoherent rantings of those who oppose such innovations on the basis of their non-hunger-focused principles rather than because they have studied the science and the cost benefit relationships that often make this type of agriculture so compelling.

Too many who claim to be promoting environmentalism are busy with agendas that are often at odds with basic human needs.     The concept of  “sustainability” is invoked far too often now as an excuse to disparage business practices and promote questionable actions rather than address the real and optimized long term needs of planet earth and the human race.

Genetically Modified Food:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food

Gates on this issue: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1530051720091015

The importance of the Green Revolution:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution