Challenge the #GlobalSeedGrab

Dear community,

A few weeks ago, we shared about the World Bank’s dangerous Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project and the particular threats it poses to African agriculture (read our analysis here). Now is the time to increase the pressure on the Bank and its donors.

On January 18, letters signed by over 150 groups (including CAGJ) were sent to the World Bank as well as the five donors behind the EBA project, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, demanding an end to this hijacking of farmers’ rights to seeds and the corporatization of agriculture.

This joint advocacy led by the Oakland Institute has forced the World Bank to recognize the importance and value of farmer-managed seed systems! In the 2017 EBA report released this week, the Bank incorporated some of the language from the letters word-for-word into the seed section (see attached image for an example of the specific language copied from the letter).

However, beyond this recognition, the Bank is still running the EBA and promoting the pro-corporate regulations we have denounced. Now, everyone can email the World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and EBA donors directly to request the withdrawal of this harmful project.

As we highlighted in our last blog, the seed indicators are part of a regime of power that seek to legitimatize a vision of agro-industrial production, commercialization, and privatization. For farmers, this means creating markets along the supply chain to displace farmer-managed seed systems and agroecological farming. The Bank’s small fix aimed at silencing criticism does not guarantee changes in these indicators or the promotion of pro-private sector seed policies and large-scale industrial agriculture.

We cannot let the World Bank dictate agricultural policies of sovereign nations at the expense of farmers. Tell World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and Western donors: DROP THE ENABLING THE BUSINESS OF AGRICULTURE INDEX NOW!

Share on facebook! Challenge the #GlobalSeedGrab

Thank you for taking action!

Report-back on Mexico City Conference on GMOs

By Simone Adler

Phil Bereano, AGRA Watch Member, speaks during the ENSSER conference on Gates and Philanthrocapitalism. (L-R) Phil Bereano, Mariam Mayet of African Center of Biodiversity, Angela Hilbeck of ETH Zurich, and Dr. Oram Arellano, session chair for the conference.

On December 1st and 2nd, AGRA Watch member Phil Bereano and CAGJ Organizing Director Simone Adler joined scientists from around the world for a conference held at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City to present where we are in regards to genetic engineering in agriculture and other fields, where we’ve come, and where we are going. The conference, titled “Taking Stock – 20 Years of GM Crops – 40 Years of ‘Genetic Engineering’” was hosted by the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER), Third World Network (TWN), the Mexican Union of Scientist Concerned with Society (UCCS), and the Latin American Union of Scientist Concerned with Society and Nature (UCCSNAL).

The two days of presentations (with simultaneous Spanish and English interpretation) were organized on topics ranging from the “human cost of GM crops in South America” to “CRISPR Gene Drives and the implication of extinction technologies and population-scale engineering”, from “the failure of Bt cotton in Burkina Faso” to “legal framework for GMO risk assessment: excluding public science”. AGRA Watch member Phil Bereano gave a presentation entitled “Philanthrocapitalism: the Gates Foundation’s African Programs are not Charity” as part the session “GMOs in Developing Countries”.

Preceding the Conference of Parties on the Convention on Biological Diversity and Meeting of the Parties on the Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols held in Cancun, this conference presented an opportunity to review and share analysis on issues of concern at COP13 and MOP8 in particular, such as synthetic biology and gene drives.

The report by ENSSER gives a robust summary of the presentations, including Phil’s (see below), and their important analyses.

N2Africa, the Gates Foundation and legume commercialisation in Africa

By Sarah Herrington, AGRA Watch Intern

In August, the African Centre for Biodiversity released a report titled N2Africa, The Gates Foundation and legume commercialization in Africa, as a result of a 3 year research program. This report focuses on the N2Africa program, which claims to be an initiative for the development and distribution of new legume varieties, as well as promotion of the use of inoculants and synthetic fertilizers, in order to develop a commercial legume market for smallholders. The program is backed by a conglomerate of organizations, including the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), public research institutions, farmer associations, and universities. The majority of funding, however, comes directly from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with smaller donations from its affiliate, the Howard G. Warren Foundation.

Legumes have a long history as a food source in Africa due to their high nutritional value. Although the development of new legume varieties offers possibilities for nutritional and ecological benefits for smallholders and the African population, the program follows the pattern of other Green Revolution initiatives – resulting in problems such as economic instability, land holding risks, and misplaced objectives. This report outlines the problematic potentials of the N2Africa Program as well as projected outcomes. The report points out the parameters that should be recognized as the primary goals of the initiative (the nutritional and ecological benefits) and how these parameters are actually thrown into a secondary category of developmental goals, behind international commercial market development.

 

 

 

 

Like father like son? Not so fast. Howard Buffett warns the Gates Foundation approach to farming is unsustainable.

Warren Buffett’s Son Disagrees With Bill Gates

December 12, 2011, 8:21 AM ET

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/12/12/warren-buffetts-son-disagrees-with-bill-gates/

By Shira Ovide

Deal Journal already brought you some of the juicy tidbits from Howard Buffett’s interview last night on “60 Minutes.” But we were struck last night by the revelation of philosophical disagreements between Warren Buffett’s son and Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and Warren Buffett’s close buddy.

Howard Buffett has plowed some of his Buffett fortune into promoting sustainable farming techniques in poor countries. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — which has been handed $31 billion of Warren Buffett’s money — has turned its considerable charitable funds to help poor farmers in Africa. Howard Buffett thinks some of the Gates Foundation’s approach is doomed to fail, he told “60 Minutes.”

Buffett says the Gates Foundation approach is to focus on high-tech farming techniques including hybrid seeds and synthetic fertilizers that aren’t sustainable in poor countries. “We need to quit thinking about trying to do it like we do it in America,” Howard Buffett said about the farming programs underway at the Gates . “At some point those guys are going to go home and the money going to not be there.”

“I’m not saying it’s all wrong,” Howard Buffett said. “Bill Gates is the smartest guy in the world, next to my dad.”