Gates Foundation Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 15:31:27 PM PDT

Now, there's nothing wrong with buying stock. My parents hold lots of BP stock, and they are hardly guilty of dumping the 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. But this is one more step in a long line of actions by the Gates Foundation in which it is advocating policies and agricultural technologies that will directly benefit and profit Monsanto while screwing over the most vulnerable people on earth: hungry subsistence farmers in developing countries.

I wrote a piece recently about what happens when American industrial agriculture collides with poor, uneducated subsistence farmers in the developing world and it ain't pretty. In fact, it's tragic. It's criminal. For a corporation to prey upon such a vulnerable population for its own gain, when the result is the starvation, continued impoverishment, or loss of land and lifestyle of the poor.

Perhaps Gates thinks he is doing something good for the world with his advocacy of biotechnology and industrial agriculture. No doubt all of the executives from Monsanto and other biotech and chemical companies tell him that every day. He should instead listen to the 400 scientists who spent 3 years performing the most comprehensive study of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology in the history of the world, the IAASTD report. The report recommends agroecology - what many in the U.S. would refer to as "organics" (even though the term is more nuanced than that).

See the press release from AGRA Watch below.

National Academies of Science Report on Sustainable Ag

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jun 29, 2010 at 08:51:17 AM PDT

Below, I've included a few excerpts from the report in brief that can be downloaded for free.  

Rajiv Shah, Formerly of the Gates Foundation, Named to Head USAID

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Nov 10, 2009 at 15:29:04 PM PST

The choice of Shah is a crystal clear sign of the direction the Obama Administration plans to go on fighting hunger. The majority of the world has signed onto a UN/World Bank study (the IAASTD report)  calling for agroecological farming methods as the way to solve world hunger. The IAASTD report says that GMOs are not the way forward to help hunger among smallholders in Africa and South Asia and that our free trade agenda actually harms these farmers. The Gates Foundation (and presumably, Shah) takes the opposite view - against the conclusions of the 400 scientists from around the world who worked on the IAASTD report - that GMOs are the way to go. And, obviously, Obama is following Clinton and Bush as a die-hard free-trader.

This is not unexpected, but it's bad news. Bad, bad, bad news.

Breaking: Gates Foundation Does Something Good

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jul 08, 2009 at 12:50:45 PM PDT

Worldwatch Institute will assess the impacts of a range of farming techniques on the environment and agricultural productivity. The project will provide stakeholders, including policymakers, farmer and community networks, and international donors, with research on practical solutions for creating sustainable food security.

In other words, they are going to try some sustainable agriculture and see what happens. Nice. Here are the specific things they say they will try:

• Adding nitrogen-fixing plants into crop rotations as a low-cost solution for enriching soils and breaking weed and pest cycles;

• Overcoming freshwater shortages with rain harvesting, efficient irrigation, micro dams, and cover cropping;

• Strengthening local breeding capacity, including the use of farmer-run seed banks and genetic markers of important crop traits;

• Tapping international carbon-credit markets to reward farmers for enriching their soils and planting carbon-sequestering tree crops;

• Involving women farmers in decision-making at all levels.

Better yet? They are partnering with groups like World Neighbors, Ecoagriculture Partners, Heifer International, Rodale Institute, Slow Food International, International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the Global Water Policy Project. Very exciting! The end result of the project will be the Institute's 2011 annual report "World 2011: Nourishing the Planet," which will share the project's findings.

Sampler Platter

by: Jill Richardson

Tue May 05, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PDT

• Gene Logsdon, author of Small-Scale Grain Raising (an absolutely delightful book that I will review soon), says it's time to start growing your own bread. (H/t Natasha)

• The Gates Foundation is funding GM pharma tomatoes. Blah. I hate them.

• Is it really Michelle Obama who deserves credit for an increase in seed sales for the second year in a row, or is it high food prices and a shitty economy? I don't know about you but now that I've got no job, I've got a lot more time for gardening and a lot less money for food!

• "What will party-hopping Arlen Specter do about food/ag policy?" asks Obama Foodorama. My hunch is that we will see no change in his positions, which tend to be middle of the road according to conventional wisdom and very frustrating according to me (now why won't he support EFCA???).

• LOL, the legislators of West Virginia (a.k.a. the 5th fattest state in the U.S.) killed a menu labeling bill while eating junk food and got caught on video. Sometimes YouTube is a really great thing.

• After the peanut disaster, Georgia has a new food safety law.

• Get Fooducated about salad dressing and then learn to make your own. Even simple olive oil and lemon juice or balsamic vinegar will do the job. Apparently most store-bought salad dressings are kind of a scam when you actually look at the ingredients.

• California's school lunch funding is in trouble. Although, to be fair, so is everything else in the CA state budget. Our state is just f*ing broke. Why can't we tax all the movie stars, or something?

• Black farmers rallied in DC last week, asking the USDA to shed its nickname "the last plantation" and finally compensate them fairly.

• According to research by ConAgra, ConAgra's Healthy Choice brand products are very healthy! Mmm hmm. And last week I heard from Coca-Cola's researchers that sodas are excellent at hydrating you and you need more than 9 cups a day. So why don't you wash down your Healthy Choice meal with a Coke?

• The food industry wants to monitor itself for ethical behavior. But Marion Nestle disagrees that industry self-regulation is the way to go. How about some independent oversight?

Fuuuuu....dge... (Rajiv Shah Nominated to USDA)

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 15:30:26 PM PDT

The nominee is Rajiv Shah as Under Secretary of Research, Education and Economics and Chief Scientist at USDA. And who's Rajiv Shah? He's the Director of the Agricultural Development Program at the Gates Foundation. In other words, he's the guy heading up all of the bad shit going on around the world.

And... here's what Vilsack thinks about him:

Dr. Rajiv Shah is a globally recognized leader in science, health and economics ... disciplines that are critical to the missions of this department," said Vilsack. As Director of the Agricultural Development Program at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rajiv has a profound influence on helping the world's poor lead healthy and productive lives. With his extensive background, Rajiv will help guide advances in food safety, nutrition, energy and climate, agricultural productivity, and global food security-to name a few of USDA's challenges.

I don't know much about Shah as a person, but I am incredibly frustrated by the destructive and paternalistic approach the Gates Foundation has taken to "help" the developing world feed itself. They are pushing to continue and expand all of the worst of Western agriculture into the developing world, to essentially privatize the means of food production. And they are doing this despite the harmful results the same approach has already had in other parts of the world. So now they'll have their man on the inside. Terrific.

UPDATE: Here is what the NY Times had to say about Shah.

Who's Who in the Fight Against Global Hunger

by: Jill Richardson

Sat Apr 11, 2009 at 15:38:51 PM PDT

Also - about the question the Monsanto employees raised about how their company stood to profit from this bill. While the bill specifically does not SAY that any money will go to Monsanto, the Chicago Council's plan calls for USAID to take the lead on global hunger and mentions public-private partnerships. Monsanto is already involved in one such public-private partnership with USAID in Kenya. So it's not too much of a stretch to imagine they would be included in whatever may come of this bill.

Africa: "Hungry or not, don't force GM down our throats"

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Mar 23, 2009 at 06:42:30 AM PDT

Blinded by its ambition and deaf to the demands of the African farmers and environmental groups, the Foundation has chosen to disregard prominent studies that challenge the conventional wisdom of industrial and market-based agriculture agenda.

The 2008 study by the UN Conference on Trade and Development and the UN Environment Programme, clearly demonstrates that organic agriculture outperforms chemical-intensive farming and is thus more conducive to food security in Africa.

An analysis of 114 projects in 24 African countries demonstrated that yields more than doubled where organic, or near-organic, practices had been used.

The research also found strong environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water, and resistance to drought in these areas. But these findings do not make it into the Foundation's agricultural plan.

Damn!