The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a $306 million package of agricultural development grants designed to boost the yields and incomes of millions of small farmers in Africa and other parts of the developing world so they can lift themselves and their families out of hunger and poverty.

Announcing the grants at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bill Gates, co-chair of the foundation, said that support for agriculture in the developing world had been relatively neglected in recent decades, but was a critical tool to drive development in rural areas, where the vast majority of the world's poorest people still live. Gates was joined by Dr. A. Namanga Ngongi, President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick.