Analytics for Improving and Protecting Agricultural Productivity for Smallholder Farmers. Neil Hausmann is a Senior Program Officer in the Agricultural Development portfolio at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In this role, Neil provides targeted investments to teams of researchers to develop, de-risk and deploy interventions to improve the agricultural derived income and nutrition of smallholder farmers. Prior to joining BMGF in 2020, Neil worked for 15 years at Pioneer Hi-Bred and Corteva Agriscience in breeding, digital ag and field phenotyping and modeling.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is working with the public crop product development organizations, start-ups and academia to develop integrated analytics suites to understand changing climates and their current and future impact on biotic and abiotic challenges to crops for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This solution set is aimed to help breeders develop products that meet environmental challenges as well as meet farmers and consumer preferences. Additionally, working closely with Ministers of Agriculture and National Plant Protection Organizations, the Gates Foundation funds Early Warning Systems designed to use scouting and pest control mechanisms to effectively control and prevent emerging transboundary biotic challenges.