Lakewood – A Colorado organization that for 25 years has pioneered low-cost farming technology for villagers in the poorest parts of the world has gotten a boost: $13 million from computer software magnate Bill Gates.
The money for Lakewood-based International Development Enterprises will fund expanded projects in Ethiopia, Nepal, Myanmar and Zambia, said Paul Polak, IDE’s president and founder.
The projects use IDE-engineered water pumps, pond liners, plastic tubes and other technology to help subsistence farmers irrigate small plots and earn at least $200 a year.
“We’re shooting to help 150 million people out of poverty in the next 15 years. That may be an impossible dream. But we think we can do it,” Polak said.
Reducing poverty “is the single most important thing we can do,” he said.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recognized IDE as “a leader in small-scale irrigation technology when a lot of people have ignored it,” the foundation’s senior program officer, Roy Steiner, said.
While other organizations supply low-cost technology for farmers, they often ignore the farmers themselves, Steiner said. IDE officials “embrace listening to farmers in their work. They really do focus on farmers.”
The grant, confirmed Tuesday by Gates foundation officials, nearly doubles IDE’s annual budget.
Run by a headquarters staff of 13, IDE targets the 1.1 billion people who survive, by World Bank estimates, on less than $1 a day. This fast-growing fifth of the world’s population poses potentially grave threats to global health, the environment and security.
Those who receive help, such as the Thapa family that Polak met four years ago in Nepal, often are able to support themselves.
Back then, Krishna Thapa barely grew enough rice and beans to feed his eight children. Now, after borrowing $26 and risking it on an IDE drip irrigation system, Polak said, the family is able to grow a variety of crops, including citrus fruits. Beyond what they eat, they’ve sold enough to send three kids to school.
One son migrated to Qatar to work in oil fields, where he earns enough to send home $1,200 a year. The Thapas now sell fruit, vegetables, milk and fish, bringing their income up to $4,800 a year, Polak said.
“Our mission is to give the world’s poorest farmers options and opportunities,” he said.
A psychiatrist whose father fled the Holocaust, Polak founded IDE in the early 1980s and has launched projects worldwide, including ones in China and India. Today IDE concentrates on nine low-income countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and Cambodia. It relies on local staffers who receive about $400 a month.
IDE staffers work closely with villagers testing and refining the technology and hearing about challenges farmers face moving crops to markets.
Other donors, too, are noticing IDE. The Netherlands government recently gave $6 million. About 51 percent of IDE’s annual budget has come from government agencies, with about 40 percent from foundations and 9 percent from individual donors.
International development experts widely regard festering poverty as a problem that can affect people everywhere as impoverished peasants migrate to cities and threaten the political order.
Eradicating poverty abroad ultimately will bring security and other benefits to Americans, Polak contends.
“I’m not saying poverty is why there are suicide bombers. But you eliminate poverty, and you’ve eliminated a major force.”
Staff writer Bruce Finley can be reached at 303-954-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com.
