Gates World Free of Hunger

DES MOINES - This generation can be the generation that sees Nobel Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug's dream of a world free of hunger fulfilled, Microsoft founder Bill Gates told an audience at the World Food Prize symposium Thursday.

Gates said in the middle of the 20th century, predictions of famine and starvation turned out to be wrong because Norman Borlaug wasn't predicted.

"He not only showed humanity how to get more food from the Earth, he proved that farming has the power to lift up the lives of the poor," Gates said.

Borlaug, a Cresco native, was the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize winner for creating higher-yield varieties of wheat that staved off famine. Borlaug later created the World Food Prize to recognize agricultural achievements. He died last month at the age of 95.

The world is re-learning Borlaug's lesson today as attention is back on the cause of fighting poverty and hunger through improving agriculture, Gates said.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has set aside $120 million in grants to help small farmers around the world grow higher-yield crops and get them to market.

When the couple created the foundation, Gates said they thought its basic principal should be the belief that all lives have equal value and that everyone deserves the chance to live a healthy and productive life.

Over time, their search for the greatest leverage brought them to helping farmers of small plots of land, who make up three-quarters of the world's poorest people, he said.

"Melinda and I believe that helping the poorest small-holder farmers grow more crops and get them to market is the world's single most powerful lever for reducing hunger and poverty," Gates said.

The foundation's grants will go to funding higher yielding varieties of sorghum and millet, sweet potatoes with a higher vitamin content that resist pests and legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil.
Gates said the next Green Revolution has to be greener than the first, which transformed agriculture in Latin America and Asia and helped avert famines there.

"Now is the time. The world food crisis has forced hunger higher on the world's agenda," Gates said.

But the effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that separates those supporting technology that increases productivity and an environmental approach that promotes sustainability, Gates said.

"They say you have to choose. I believe it's a false choice, and it's dangerous for the field. It will block important advances and can breed hostility among people who need to work together," Gates said.

He argues that higher productivity benefits the environment, because when productivity is low, people start farming on grazing land and cutting down forest to grow crops.

World Food Prize Foundation President Kenneth Quinn said Borlaug was pleased when Gates' foundation began funding agricultural projects.

"You have inspired us, Mr. Gates, with your impassioned commitment to end hunger and poverty," Quinn said.

This article was written by Charlotte Eby for WCFCourier.net Picture is from richter.org
We thought it was important to include it here, in case you missed the coverage of Bill Gates in Iowa.

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Can You See the Motorcycle?

The Honda crotch rocket rider was driving about 85 mph. The VW driver was talking on a cell phone when she pulled out from a side street. The car had two passengers and the bike rider was found inside the car with them. The VW actually flipped over from the force of impact. All 3 were killed instantly.

Stop talking and texting on your phone when driving.

It could kill you. Literally.

Hampton Today made possible by sponsors like:
Michelle Hartman – Tupperware –641-373-8880
Denise Passehl – Watkins – 641-580-4052
Franklin County Farmers Market 641-456-4811
Patrick Palmer – The Computer Guy – 641-420-1234
Seven Stars Restaurant – 641-456-5378
Debra Brown – Melaleuca - 641-458-1114

Have You Been to Any of These?

Franklin County has a large number of places on the National Historic Register. They include:
Beeds Lake State Park
H.E. Boehmler House
Franklin County Courthouse
G.A.R. Soldier’s Memorial Hall
Sheriffs Residence and Jail
Hampton Double Square Historic District
Hampton Public Library
Dr.O.B. Harriman House
Maysville School House
Reeve Electric Association Plant
Leander Reeve House (Old Stone House)
Herman Wood Round Barn
How many of these places have you been too?

http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/IA/franklin/state.html for more information.

Hampton Today made possible by sponsors like:
Michelle Hartman – Tupperware –641-373-8880
Denise Passehl – Watkins – 641-580-4052
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Patrick Palmer – The Computer Guy – 641-420-1234
Seven Stars Restaurant – 641-456-5378
Debra Brown – Melaleuca - 641-458-1114

Julie Has A new Daughter

My new daughter, Jadira, has grown up in Dashoguz, Turkmenistan, which is on the northern border next to Uzbekistan in Central Asia. She will be living with me until the end of the Iowa Falls-Alden school year. This semester, she is taking English III, Spanish I, U.S. History, cooking, photography, PE, and chorus.

She already has taken all the math and science classes offered. She also has taken 8 years of English and has studied Russian and the Turkish language. In her home, they speak Kazakh, her father's native language. The national language is Turkmen and she understands her friends who speak Uzbek. In Dashoguz, she can take classes where the teacher speaks either Turkmen or Russian. Her mother teaches Russian in another school and her father is a dispatcher for the city fire department where his brother is the captain.

She is a FLEX student here on scholarship. She has several mandatory activities that regular foreign exchange students do not have to do. She has to do 50 hours of community service/volunteer projects with documentation, 3 presentations with documentation, complete Three Point Action Plan projects with documentation, a community mentor/shadowing project with documentation, examine the origins of the ethnic group in our area with documentation, organize a community service project in Iowa Falls with documentation. She wants to be an interpreter but her father wants her to be a jurist (lawyer).

The Future Leaders Exchange program (FLEX) chooses intelligent students to study in the USA for a year to experience American way of life and culture and education. Usually this program chooses students who are currently at school on the 9th or 10th grade level. For older students American-Turkmen scholarships are offered to American University of Central Asia (AUCA) which is located in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Jadira plans on attending University in Kyrgyzstan. She says that it is very difficult to be admitted to a university in Turkmenistan. Only serious students are allowed to even attend secondary school. There are no extra curricular activities connected to the school but there are after school activities around the city.

There are many schools in Dashoguz, but few higher institutions. Students at her school attend from nursery school thru secondary school. She has 125 students in her class. Each grade level wears a different color uniform and each city school has different uniforms. Schools, universities and other educational structures are controlled by the Ministry of Education of Turkmenistan. The schools begin on September 1 and end on May 25. Students attend school 6 days a week, with one week vacation in the fall, two weeks in the winter, and one week in the spring.

Places like Dashoguz captures the interests of many people and the government of the United States because of ancient places like Kunya-urgench. Early in its history, it was a popular stop on the Silk Road because it had a spring. In recent years, the Silk Route is again being used for the maritime and overland routes.

Jadira and I are enjoying our time together. She is delightful. I am happy being a mom again. Even if it is for a short time.

Julie Ziesman

Hampton Today made possible by sponsors like:
Michelle Hartman – Tupperware –641-373-8880
Denise Passehl – Watkins – 641-580-4052
Franklin County Farmers Market 641-456-4811
Patrick Palmer – The Computer Guy – 641-420-1234
Seven Stars Restaurant – 641-456-5378
Debra Brown – Melaleuca - 641-458-1114

Iowa Valley Continuing Education www.ivce.com