Howard G. Buffet Foundation- Striving for a better Tomorrow

              This week’s blog post is supposed to be focused on an educational campaign related to agriculture. For my topic I have chosen the Howard G. Buffet Foundation. Having been selected as one of the 40 Chances Fellows for the Ag Futures of America Conference sponsored in part through the Buffet Foundation I  have heard some more about the Howard G. Buffet Foundations goals. As part of the 40 Chances program I was privileged to receive a 40 Chances book that was written by Howard G. Buffet and also hear him speak about his 3^rd world experiences. The Foundations goals for the next 40 years benefit a wide range of people in different ways with the main three goals focusing on food insecurity, water insecurity, and conflict management.  

Howard enjoys educating people

The first time I heard Howard Buffet talk was at the Ag Futures of America Conference in the fall of 2012. Now many people have heard of Warren Buffet, but his son Howard is doing great things with his resources. Warren set a challenge for Howard to do something great. The theory behind Howard’s foundation is that everybody really has 40 years in their lifetime to  make a difference and this is how he has come up with the 40 Chances campaign. Howard plans to spend 3 billion dollars on helping educate others on more sustainable agricultural practices.

Now Howard G. Buffet has two main farms in the United States and also does lots of work on improving agricultural practices in foreign countries. His own crop production farm is in Illinois and he focuses a lot on sustainable farming practices like no-tillage and cover crops. Now reading this you may think his foundation has nothing to do with animal agriculture, which is the main focus of my blog; however, animals need to eat and if crop production is not at prime levels the livestock will not have feed. No-tillage is a practice that helps increase the organic matter in soil and also requires less fuel use. Cover crops are beneficial in many ways such as increasing the amount on nutrients left in the soil and reducing wind and water erosion. Buffet’s other farm in Arizona is a research facility that helps with changing foreign agriculture.  

Buffet’s initiatives fall into his three areas of educating people. He not only educates those in Africa, Central America, and other foreign countries, but he also does work in the United States to improve people’s harvest potential. His campaign is very well run. He has lots of different area that he is covering and also a wide geographical area. Connecting with people is key and the Howard G. Buffet foundation definitely is about connecting others and sharing ideas to create the best solutions for problems. In class this week we learned educational campaigns should have goals and strategies and this foundation definitely has goals and several reasonable strategies for implementing those goals.



Howard G Buffet and his son 

who helped write a few chapters in the book.

His book 40 CHANCES: Finding Hope in a Hungry World is a great read and helps show many of the challenges Howard and his son have went through. I would definitely recommend reading it. It is educational and very eye opening about the struggles many face in the world.

Visit the 40 Chances website to learn more about the 40 Chances program, watch a video, or purchase your own copy of the book: www.40chances.com

More information on the Howard G. Buffet Foundation and all of its initiatives can be found at:  
http://www.thehowardgbuffettfoundation.org/about-hgbf/