Bill Gates is expected to announce a new plan today to have the U. N. World Food Program (WFP) guarantee a market for the world's small farmers.  The Gates Foundation and the Howard G. Buffet Foundation working together with the WFP on a new program called Purchase for Progress (P4P) that will transform the way WFP purchases food in developing countries.

The Seattle Times reports that:

"The idea is to bring hundreds of thousands of small farmers into the market as suppliers to the U.N. food program. The largest humanitarian organization in the world, the WFP provides food for 90 million people in 80 countries and has a budget of nearly $3 billion this year.

Howard Buffett, the eldest son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, says that the food program "is the only agency in the world that has trucks and planes and people on ground that can buy such large amounts of food locally and deliver somewhere else".

The two foundations, along with the government of Belgium, have committed $76 million to the P4P program.  "It will be launched in 21 pilot countries over the next five years, and expects to significantly increase the income of at least 350,000 farmers in those nations." 

And it is likely to make a huge difference.  "Many small farmers must sell surplus food after harvest at the first opportunity, often for low prices because they lack market information. The P4P program will guarantee a market for one to three years, removing some of that risk. Buying will be closer to farm production, removing logistics costs and markups passed on by middlemen."