Can Bill Gates help Africa feed itself?

The injection of western food aid into poor countries is often criticized to be unfair competition for small farmers in those countries the international community is actually trying to help. The global food crisis rocketing the prices of basic food commodities, once again showed that the poorest in the world suffered the most, despite decades long efforts to eradicate hunger from the world.

Last week Bill Gates and Howard Buffett (Warren's oldest son) announced their private foundations will plow more than $75 million into helping small farmers in Africa and Latin America to sell their crops as food aid — a move which could potentially overhaul the decades-old global food aid system.