Seed Privatisation - Control Seeds, Contol Food

Food sovereignty activists are shining a light on a closed-door meeting between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which are meeting in London on Monday with representatives of the biotechnology industry to discuss how to privatize the seed and agricultural markets of Africa.

Early Monday, protesters picketed outside the Gates Foundation's London offices holding signs that called on the foundation to "free the seeds." Some demonstrators handed out packets of open-pollinated seeds, which served as symbol of the "alternative to the corporate model promoted by USAID and BMGF." Others smashed a piñata, which they said represented the "commercial control of seed systems;" thousands of the seeds which filled the pinata spilled across the office steps. A similar protest is expected later Monday in Seattle, Washington, where BMGF is headquartered.

The meeting was convened to discuss a report put forth by Monitor-Deloitte, which was commissioned by BMGF and USAID to develop models for the commercialization of seed production in Africa, especially "early generation seed," and to identify ways in which the African governmental sectors could facilitate private involvement in African seed systems. The study was conducted in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia on maize, rice, sorghum, cowpea, common beans, cassava and sweet potato.
However, food sovereignty activists are sounding the alarm over the secret meeting. Heidi Chow, food sovereignty campaigner with Global Justice Now, which organized Monday's protest, warned that the agenda being promoted by these stakeholders will only increase corporate control over seeds.
"This is not 'aid' - it's another form of colonialism," said Chow. "We need to ensure that the control of seeds and other agricultural resources stay firmly in the hands of small farmers who feed the majority of the population in Africa, rather than allowing big agribusiness to dominate even more aspects of the food system."

In a blog post, Chow further explained:

For generations, small farmers have been able to save and swap seeds. This vital practice enables farmers to keep a wide range of seeds which helps maintain biodiversity and helps them to adapt to climate change and protect from plant disease. However, this system of seed saving is under threat by corporations who want to take more control over seeds. Big seed companies are keen to grow their market share of commercial seeds in Africa and alongside philanthropic organizations like the Gates Foundation and aid donors, they are discussing new ways to increase their market penetration of commercial seeds and displacing farmers own seed systems. 
Corporate-produced hybrid seeds often produce higher yields when first planted, but the second generation seeds will produce low yields and unpredictable crop traits, making them unsuitable for saving and storing. This means that instead of saving seeds from their own crops, farmers who use hybrid seeds become completely dependent on the seed companies that sell them.

Further, many of the seeds produced by these biotechnology giants are sold alongside chemical fertilizer and pesticides, manufactured by the very same companies, the use of which often leads to widespread environmental destruction and other health problems.

As others noted, while the meeting attendees included representatives from the World Bank and Syngenta, the world’s third biggest seed and biotechnology company, no farmers or farming organizations were represented at the talks.
"Seeds are vital for our food system and our small farmers have always been able to save and swap seeds freely," Ali-Masmadi Jehu-Appiah, chair of Food Sovereignty Ghana, said in a press statement. "Now our seed systems are increasingly under threat by corporations who are looking to take more control over seeds in their pursuit of profit. This meeting will push this corporate agenda to hand more control away from our small farmers and into the hands of big seed companies."

Reporting on the Monitor-Deloitte study, Ian Fitzpatrick, a food sovereignty researcher for Global Justice Now, said that documents circulated ahead of the meeting revealed a neo-liberal agenda "laid bare."
Fitzpatrick writes:

The report recommends that in countries where demand for patented seeds is weaker (i.e. where farmers are using their own seed saving networks), public-private partnerships should be developed so that private companies are protected from ‘investment risk’. It also recommends that that NGOs and aid donors should encourage governments to introduce intellectual property rights for seed breeders and help to persuade farmers to buy commercial, patented seeds rather than relying on their own traditional varieties. 
Finally, in line with the broader neoliberal agenda of agribusiness companies across the world, the report suggests that governments should remove regulations (like export restrictions) so that the seed sector is opened up to the global market. 

"This neoliberal agenda of deregulation and privatization, currently promoted in almost every sphere of human activity—from food production to health and education—poses a serious threat to food sovereignty and the ability of food producers and consumers to define their own food systems and policies," Fitzpatrick adds.

AGRA Watch, a program of the grassroots group Community Alliance for Social Justice, notes that the BMGF-USAID commercial seed agenda further "extends U.S. foreign policy into Africa on behalf of corporate interests."
Phil Bereano, food sovereignty campaigner with AGRA Watch and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Washington added: "This is an extension of what the Gates Foundation has been doing for several years—working with the US government and agribusiness giants like Monsanto to corporatize Africa’s genetic riches for the benefit of outsiders. Don’t Bill and Melinda realize that such colonialism is no longer in fashion? It’s time to support African farmers’ self-determination."

from here

AFSA Open Letter Opposing Human Feeding Trials Involving GM Banana

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), a Pan African platform comprising civil society networks and farmer organisations working towards food sovereignty, has submitted this Open Letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Wendy White from Iowa State University and the Human Institutional Review Board of Iowa State University expressing fierce opposition to the human feeding trials taking place at Iowa State University involving genetically modified (GM) bananas. The Letter is supported by more than 120 organizations from around the world.

To:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Dr Wendy S White, Iowa State University

The Director, Human-Institutional Review Board, Iowa State University

Dear Sirs/Madam

We, the undersigned, representing diverse constituencies from across Africa and the world, working towards food sovereignty, are strongly opposed to the human feeding trials taking place at the Iowa State University involving the so called genetically modified (GM) ‘super banana’ - GM Matooke, Sweet and Roasting bananas.

These trials funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are being carried out under the leadership of Dr. Wendy White of the Iowa State University, on 12 young students, with the intention of introducing the GM banana first in Uganda and later, to other countries in East Africa. The GM banana, currently undergoing field trials in Uganda, was developed by scientists at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, similarly also funded by the Gates Foundation.

Despite claims to the contrary from the promoters and developers of GM crops, and to reiterate what nearly three hundred global scientists have stated in an Open Letter in December 2013[i], there is no consensus that GM crops are safe for human consumption. Most of the research carried out by independent scientists on GM crops directly contradicts the results of biotech industry-sponsored studies that claim no evidence of risk or harm.

This so-called ‘Super-banana’, has been genetically modified to contain extra beta-carotene, a nutrient the human body uses to produce vitamin A. Unlike current GM crops in commercial production where agronomic traits have been altered, scientists have spliced genes into the GM banana to produce substances for humans to digest (extra beta carotene). The GM banana is a whole different ballgame, raising serious concerns about the risks to African communities who would be expected to consume it. Production of vitamin A in the body is complex and not fully understood. This raises important questions including inter alia, whether high levels of beta- carotene or vitamin A may carry risks and what the nature of those risks might be. While a risk assessment is a pre-requisite for GM foods under many national jurisdictions, the need for specific and additional food safety assessment for nutritionally enhanced GM crops such as the GM banana is acknowledged by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, as genetic modifications result in a composition that may be significantly different from their conventional counterparts[ii].

We question what firm conclusions can be drawn from feeding trials of young people residing in the United States for poor rural farmers and consumers in Africa, given all the differences in lifestyle and diets between these two populations?

What other foods will these students be eating with the GM bananas, and how will these be eaten? Will the participants in the USA be eating this in the same way? Will it have the same color and same levels of water composition? Would cooking the GM bananas result in a loss of beta-carotene? Will participants be given portions of fats and oils (such as butter) to supplement the banana, as was the case in feeding trials with Golden Rice to facilitate the absorption of beta-carotene? If so, then the GM banana feeding studies may be of little relevance to rural Ugandans and other East Africans who prepare the Matooke variety simply by steaming and mashing.

Great strides have been made in the Philippines, another target country for Vitamin enhanced GM crops, through government programs that supply supplements and improve access to vitamin A rich foods, to overcome Vitamin A deficiencies. This is done without the enormous costs or unknown long- term impacts on health, the environment and farming systems that are entailed by using GM crops. And it is more completely in control of the user society.

Africa, the USA, and indeed the rest of the world, do not need GM crops. These crops divert resources away from more locally appropriate and controlled agricultural solutions to nutritional concerns. If indeed the aim of those involved in the promotion of the project is truly to combat Vitamin A deficiency then surely they should be advocating for the consumption of more diverse fruits and foods, such as sweet potatoes that are rich in Vitamin A and that are in abundance in Africa. Ironically, the promotion of a GM food staple high in Vitamin A, risks perpetuating monolithic diets, the very causes of Vitamin A deficiency in the first place.

This letter is in solidarity with farmers and communities in Africa and around the world, which have resisted the genetic modification of their staple foods- from Ghana, Kenya and Zambia- to Mexico, India and the Philippines. We will not stand by idly as attempts are made to systematically genetically modify Africa’s staple foods and in the process gain a massive positive public relations coup by claiming to have conquered health problems at the unnecessary risk to Africans.

Finally, we demand that the full contents of this open letter are shared with the human subjects of these trials in the USA.


Bridget Mugambe
Policy Advocate
Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)

from here with the list of 122 signee organisations

Where Does The Money Go? - Grants For Agriculture

“Listening to farmers and addressing their specific needs” is the first guiding principle of the Gates Foundation's work on agriculture. But it is hard to listen to someone when you cannot hear them. Small farmers in Africa do not participate in the spaces where the agendas are set for the agricultural research institutions, NGOs or initiatives, like AGRA, that the Gates Foundation supports. These spaces are dominated by foundation reps, high-level politicians, business executives, and scientists.
Listening to someone, if it has any real significance, should also include the intent to learn. But nowhere in the programmes funded by the Gates Foundation is there any indication that it believes that Africa's small farmers have anything to teach, that they have anything to contribute to research, development and policy agendas. The continent's farmers are always cast as the recipients, the consumers of knowledge and technology from others. In practice, the foundation's first guiding principle appears to be a marketing exercise to sell its technologies to farmers. In that, it looks, not surprisingly, a lot like Microsoft.


  Gates Foundation agricultural grant recipients, top 10 countries 2003-2014
 (taken from here)


The numbers are US$ millions:

USA	880	By far the largest recipient country of Gates agricultural grants meant to benefit farmers in poor countries: $880 million dished out in 254 grants. Recipients include US universities and research institutions to produce for crop varieties and biotechnology research for farmers in Africa (e.g. Cornell University, $90m in 12 grants), big NGO projects mostly oriented to develop technology and markets (e.g. Heifer, $51m, to increase cow productivity and Technoserve Inc., $47m, to help poor farmers to “build business that create income”), and several policy and capacity building projects to push the foundation's agenda in Africa and elsewhere.
UK	156	A total of 25 grants with a focus on academic research such as for the University of Greenwich to work on cassava value chains in several African countries (16.6 m), the University of Cambridge to work on epidemiological modelling on wheat and cassava diseases ($4.2m) and the John Innes Centre to test the feasibility cereal crops capable of fixing nitrogen ($9.8m).
Germany	115	Three grants for the German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ) to develop supply chains for African ca shews and for support to African rice farmers ($51.1m), and another three grants for the German Investment Corporation to work on African cotton and coffee farming ($48.8m), amongst others.
Netherlands	61	Mostly for two grants to the Wageningen University for agronomic research on grain legumes ($47.8m)
India	41	Total of ten grants including two grants to PRADAN ($30.8m for women farmers training), and to BAIF ($6.3 m. for establishment of cattle development centres)
China	37	Mostly for the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (two grants totalling $33 million) to develop new rice varieties for farmers across the world.
South Africa	37	14 grants to a variety of grantees, including the FANRPAN network to carry out agriculture programmes ($16m), University of Pretoria ($4.5m for policy research) Sangonet ($1.7m. for mobile phone applications for farmers), SACAU (two grants $5.8m to support farmers organisations and electronic farmer management systems, and the Association of African Business Schools ($1.5m to develop agribusiness management and training programmes).
Uganda	36	Mostly for RUFORUM (two grants totalling over $30 million to support agricultural research universities in the region). RUFORUM was established as a programme of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1992 and became an independent Regional University Forum in 2004.
Australia	30	A total of 14 grants mostly to universities and research centres to develop sorghum and cowpea hybrids for Africa and other sorghum breeding programmes, deliver solutions to dairy cattle genetics in poor countries, and supply cattle genotypes to dairy farmers in East Africa, amongst others.
Canada	20	A total of 8 grants mostly to universities to ensure adoption of new technologies, develop cassava seed supply chains in Tanzania, and radio programmes in Africa, amongst others.
Total top 10	1413	$1.4 billion, or almost half of all agriculture funding from Gates in the last decade went to grantees in these 10 countries: 90% to the North.

Corporate Onslaught = Killer Profits = Neocolonialism

Stop the corporate onslaught in Africa!

Nowhere is the threat posed by the onslaught of profit-driven private investment

in agriculture more obvious than across Africa, where under the guise of feeding

Africa and increasing investment, a host of initiatives are underway to destroy

smallholders and hand over African resources to corporations.

They come under many names – the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa

(AGRA), African Agricultural Growth Corridors, the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and

Nutrition, Feed the Future, the Gates Foundation – but the underlying strategy is the

same. They are designed to convert millions of hectares of smallholder-based

farming to industrial plantations, with land, seeds, water, forests and food

production controlled by corporations and geared towards maximum profits

rather than food sovereignty.

In its latest report AGRA openly dismisses concerns from African social movements

about genetically modified crops as a ”farce” and ”fear of the unknown” and pushes

for new seed regimes that stop exchanges of seeds by farmers. Multi-million dollar

investments from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (a major AGRA donor) into

Monsanto, and revolving doors between donors and these corporations skew the

agenda of AGRA in favour of corporate-led farming.

The Growth Corridors aim to establish infrastructure specifically for commercial ag-

riculture and are designed by dozens of the world’s largest pesticide, GMO, fertiliser

and processed food companies, all of whom stand to make killer profits from new Af-

rican markets2

The G8 New Alliance forces African governments to change national

polices to access funding, for example by “systematically ceasing to distribute free

and unimproved [non-commercial] seeds to farmers, except in emergencies”, and

“refining land law, if necessary, to encourage long-term land leasing”.

Donor countries such as the US, UK and G8 countries are pushing these schemes

to African leaders at the highest levels and attempting to undermine African-led

democratic initiatives to tackle hunger, such as the Maputo declaration to increase

public spending on agriculture and regional agriculture policies in West Africa.

But social movements are mobilising to hold their governments to account and calling

for a clean break with the defective policies of the past. The Alliance for Food

Sovereignty in Africa, which includes environmental groups, farmers’ movements, global

justice groups, development groups, faith-based groups, women’s groups and youth

groups from 50 African countries, convened a meeting to identify the threats and draw

up an action plan to achieve food sovereignty in Africa.

In a statement this year African movements identified these schemes as a

”new wave of colonialism” based on accessing resources; flow of royalties out of

Africa and accessing new markets for corporate production. They warn that even the

Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development programme (CAADP) is a

compromised instrument, negotiated under extreme pressure from neoliberal

governments.

A plan to achieve food sovereignty in Africa would prioritise smallholders producing

for local and informal markets using proven low-input, ecologically sustainable

agricultural techniques including intercropping, on-farm compost production,

mixed farming systems (livestock, crops and trees).

Diversity of farming and knowledge should be paramount, with no corporation

able to privatise collective heritage. Investment strategies should be public,

participatory and not based on profit.

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