Jan Urhahn writes in Jacobin about the negative effects of the Gates Foundation’s efforts to promote a Green Revolution in Africa and to reduce hunger. Bill Gates, I presume, means well. Butt all too often his bold ideas fail, as they have in American education, because he imposes them instead of listening to those who do the work.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation promised Africa a “Green Revolution” to fight hunger and poverty. It hasn’t worked — but it has upped corporate agriculture’s profits. Local farmers are being left empty-handed, and hunger is rising.
Bill Gates created the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to improve agricultural productivity, but things have not gone well.
AGRA was established in 2006 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Deploying high-yield commercial seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides as its main weapons, the program is meant to help Africa unleash its own Green Revolution in agriculture to fight hunger and poverty. At least, that’s the promise.
Upon its foundation, AGRA set out to double the agricultural yields and incomes of thirty million smallholder households, thereby halving both hunger and poverty in twenty African countries by 2020. To achieve this, the “alliance” funds various projects and lobbies African governments to implement structural changes that would set the stage for its “Green Revolution.” Since its foundation, AGRA has received contributions of about $1 billion, mainly from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Large grants have also come from the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and other countries.
From these donations, AGRA has awarded grants of more than $500 million across the continent. African governments support AGRA’s goals with public funds through so-called farm input subsidy programs (FISPs), with which farmers are expected to purchase the seeds — mostly hybrid — and synthetic fertilizers promoted by AGRA. The state subsidies for small farms provide an incentive to introduce the bundle of farming technologies AGRA counts as part of its Green Revolution. FISPs have been introduced on a significant scale in ten of AGRA’s thirteen “focus countries” including Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Rwanda, Zambia, and Tanzania.
But fourteen years after AGRA was founded, it’s safe to say that the initiative has failed to meet its goals. Rather than combat hunger and poverty, hunger has actually increased by 30 percent in the AGRA focus countries — meaning that thirty million more people are suffering from it than when AGRA started. By 2018, agricultural yields in the focus countries had increased by only 18 percent, as opposed to the 100 percent AGRA promised. In the period before AGRA, yields in these countries had grown by 17 percent. The increases in yields with and without AGRA were therefore almost identical.
AGRA’s results are devastating for small-scale farmers. Most AGRA projects primarily entail selling them expensive inputs such as hybrid seeds and synthetic fertilizers via agrochemical companies. These inputs are extremely costly and thus drastically increase farmers’ risk of falling into indebtedness. Examples from Tanzania show that small-scale farmers have not been able to repay seed and fertilizer debts directly after the harvest, even forcing some to sell their livestock.
The AGRA formula — “doubled yields equal doubled incomes” — simply does not pan out in practice. In the AGRA model, any short-term increases in yield have to be bought at great expense with seeds, fertilizer, and often pesticides — an arrangement that only boosts the incomes of seed and fertilizer companies.
Moreover, freedom of choice is restricted: in AGRA projects in Kenya, small-scale farmers are not allowed to decide for themselves which corn seed they plant and which fertilizers and pesticides they use on their fields. The managers of AGRA projects assume that participating agrochemical companies make the best decisions for the farmers. AGRA’s focus is on a few food crops such as corn or soy, causing traditional nutrient-rich foods to be neglected and even displaced.
Statistics for the thirteen AGRA focus countries show that production of cereals has fallen by 21 percent since the initiative was launched. A yield decline of 7 percent was recorded for root and tuber crops. All in all, AGRA reduces the diversity in farmers’ fields and thus also the variety of seeds being used. This development in turn makes agriculture even more vulnerable to the consequences of the climate crisis.
“Bill Gates, I presume, means well.”
?!?!?!
On what evidence would you base that presumption?
Dienne Evidence that Bill Gates means well: It’s in remote regions of his soul. . . buried under the other more proximate question:
What do I do with all this money? CBK
Profit motive instead of good intentions aside, selling pesticides as “green”, environmentally friendly, is low.
Have you ever seen pesticide coated seeds?
The coating is green.
I mistakenly bought some grass seed last fall that the guy at Home Depot assured me had no pesticide on it.
I returned the bag because I’m not into killing birds just to cover a few bald spots on the lawn
It’s all about the packaging.
The way this works is they sell patented seeds to farmers and then go after any farmer who saves some of the resulting seeds from the crop for next year’s planting because doing so violates the terms of the patents, which cover not just the original seed but the plants and the seed they produce.
And when this is done on a large scale (as with programs like AGRA),it decreases the availability and increases the price of traditional seeds, since the large agribusinesses effectively push out the small scale seed companies.
The upshot is that the farmer has to keep buying new patented seed year after year and effectively becomes a sharecropper beholden to the seed company (usually a multinational corporation like Monsanto)
It’s actually a very clever strategy.
Maybe the farmers would have been better off just rotating crops.
Patents can be a very insidious thing.
The idea that you can patent and then own all the rights to a living thing by simply inserting small bits of DNA into something that natural selection produced over billions of years is particularly wrong headed.
Anyone who actually believes that a living thing is an “invention” is just an idiot.
Monsanto is known for being very protective of their patents. In one case they were suing farmers for stealing their seeds, but the farmers didn’t buy Monsanto seeds. The farmers’ plants were close to the Monsanto field, and their plants were pollinated naturally from the Monsanto plants. Monsanto claimed their GMO seeds were proprietary.
And particularly in places like Africa, farmers just don’t have the resources to fight a multi billion dollar company like Monsanto. So even the mere threat from a company like Mansanto is enough to force farmers into line (and the threats may not be just “dragging the farmer into court” but perhaps dragging them in other ways as well)
Just the fact of who is involved should be a clue to Gates that the goal of programs like AGRA is not what is claimed.
Monsanto uses thuggish Mafia tactics to force farmers and others into line
”
Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”
From
MONSANTO’S HARVEST OF FEAR
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
BY DONALD L. BARLETT AND JAMES B. STEELE
APRIL 2, 2008
Image may contain Vegetation Plant Outdoors Hedge Fence Nature Grass and Land
“Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto’s fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn’t a farmer. He wasn’t a seed dealer. He hadn’t planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small—a really small—country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. “It made me and my business look bad,” he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, “You got the wrong guy.”
When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”
Scenes like this are playing out in many parts of rural America these days as Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers’ co-ops, seed dealers—anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the “seed police” and use words such as “Gestapo” and “Mafia” to describe their tactics.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/05/monsanto200805
RATS. I was just going to invest all my millions in water. CBK
Can’t believe they’re selling shares of water now. Air must be next.
If Bill Gates is FOR himself … period. I don’t trust him one iota. Anyone who does trust Gates is a FOOL.
As usual Gates’ bold ideas were pursued without fully understanding the problem. He got lots of government support, of course, because he trades on his name and makes an investment. He imposed his top down solution with his usual trail blazing hubris, and the results were far from impressive. Where have we seen this MO before? Gates should stay in his own lane or try listening to local experts before he leaps.
Gates has lots of time on his hands to “understand the problem”.
If he doesn’t understand it, it is only because he doesn’t wish to understand it because the relevant information can be had from a five minute search online.
Agree.
Gates pays for PR to cover his devious plans by presenting them as altruism. Nobody should help Gates’ PR campaign.
SomeDam I think they call it: Willful Ignorance. CBK
Monsanto caused the same problem in India.
Indian Farmers Are Committing Suicide Because Of Monsanto’s Costly GMO Crops by midastouch: 11:52am On Jul 29, 2015
Monsanto’s GMO crops were supposed to feed the world hunger and starvation but instead the diverse sustainable organic agriculture was replaced with globalization, GMO crops and monopoly.
According to a report by Daily Mail, every 30 minutes an Indian farmer commits suicide as a result of Monsanto’s GMO crops. In the last decade, more than 250,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves because of Monsanto’s costly seeds and pesticides. Globalization and monopoly have forced farmers to buy GMO seeds and since GMO crops have become pest resistant, the farmers have no choice but to purchase Monsanto’s popular herbecide.
Indian-farmers-suicide-GMO-crops
In 2008, the Daily Mail called the continuous suicide of Indian farmers a “genocide” in the human history. What’s really disturbing is that often time farmers commit suicide by drinking the insecticide shipped to them by Monsanto. Here is the full article
After the use of Monsanto’s BT cotton in 2002, the rate of suicide among Indian farmers increased drastically. The stroy started when 90% of Indian cotton farmers were forced to swtich to Monsanto’s Bt crop hoping that Bt crops were pest resistant (so farmers did not have to buy Monsanto’s costly herbecide). However after a while, Bt cotton’s pests resistant quality started to fade away so farmers had to again buy and use Monsanto’s costly herbecide.
The high cost of GMO seeds, extensive use of herbecides and great reduction in crop value have often times left farmers bankrupt and as a result many farmers are falling into the endless cycle of debt, depression, hopelessness and despair and they have no choice but to ends their lives. The figures provided by NY University School of Law show that just in 2009 alone, 17,638 of farmers committed suicide. Here is the Figures by NY University School of Law
As a result of Monsanto’s costly GMO seeds, many families of farmers have lost their livelihood and lands and are left on their own to struggle with starvation and misery. 1.1 billion (which is 60% of Indian population) are directly or indirectly dependent on the agriculture….
Heckuvajob, Brownie!
Gates has put a lot of money into eliminating polio around the world. That is a fact. But he takes too much credit for the elimination of most of the polio in the world when in fact it has been organizations such as Rotary International that has put boots on the ground to do the vaccinations and education people in these countries of the dangers of polio as well as contributing millions of dollars that have been given by Rotary members.
When it comes to taking credit in the media it is Gates that pushes forward that he and his foundation are the saviors when it comes to the elimination of polio in the world. Rotary international and its membership take second seat.
Recognition is not what is important but rather the results. Gates is only interested in the recognition not the results. I predict the same thing with this Green Revolution in Africa.
Also from the article:
“This [AGRA] hasn’t been without resistance. African movements such as the Coalition for the Protection of African Genetic Heritage (COPAGEN) and many others have opposed AGRA from the outset, arguing that AGRA and other Green Revolution initiatives neglect the needs and rights of the small-scale producers who produce most of our food worldwide.
“Agricultural movements across Africa are calling for a phasing out of AGRA in favor of greater support for agroecology, an agricultural practice originating in the Global South and pursued by millions of farmers around the world.
“Agroecology is both a sound science as well as a social movement that stands up for the rights of farmers and rejects a purely capitalist approach to agriculture. Agroecology offers small-scale farmers the kind of innovation they need: an agriculture that makes conscious use of nature and natural processes to promote the kinds of soil-building practices that become impossible when Green Revolution technologies are used.”
The goods is that the resistance seems aligned with the aim and intentionality of the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Agenda 2063 aims for “The Africa We Want,” not the Africa Bill Gates and his kind want.
Agenda 2063 is worth paying attention to…
https://au.int/agenda2063/aspirations
If folks are interested in agriculture in Africa, this is an interesting place to start: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa-myths-and-facts
synthetic fertilizers eventually strip the soil of nutrients turning what once was useful cropland into a wasteland
The best method for farmers is to create their own natural fertilizer the same way most farmers in China did for millennia. That ancient method never included synthetic fertilizers.
TRADITIONAL CHINESE AGRICULTURE AND FARMING
Before anyone protests what they read next: “The history of agriculture in China has been one of constantly improving crop yields through innovations, improvements in techniques and intensification. The resulting surpluses have allowed the population to grow.”
From the same article: Human Fertilizer in China
Using human fertilizer Nothing is wasted in China: human waste is collected from family outhouses and used as fertilizer. Outhouses in rural China are often placed near the pig sties so waste can be collected from both sources and used for fertilizer. China has a long history of using human excrement—“night soil”—as fertilizer. The morning distribution of night soil is common sight throughout China.
Human waster is still widely used. It is often stored in fields in decorated cauldrons. Human waste is not a big environmental or health concern. More troubling is the factory run-off and medical waste that find its way into the sewer system that produces sludge-based fertilizers laced with heavy metals and toxic chemicals.
Urine is collected in 65-gallon drums and used for medicine and fertilizer. Theroux saw a sign over a urinal at a public restroom that read “We would like good quality urine, so please do not put anything in—no spitting, no paper, no cigarette butts.”
It is estimated that the citizens of Shanghai produce over 10,000 tons of human shit everyday and much of it gathered up at night, put in barrels, transported to fields around the city, and scooped out as fertilizer. Until the early 2000s, human waste was moved in Shanghai by boats poled along the city’s shallow canals and streams by women. In 2001, 4,700 tons of feces and 19,000 tons of trash traveled to processing stations and landfills by the poled boat. These boats however recently have been replaced by mechanized vessels which cover their cargo with blue traps.
The women who pole the boats begin their tasks at 4:00am as human waste picked up from neighborhoods is delivered by truck and distributed on the boats in construction hats tied to bamboo poles. Loading is usually finished around 7:00am. The process of poling the boats is slow and difficult. Sometimes the women have to jump ashore to pull the boats with ropes tied around their bodies. Some women travel 18 miles a day over a period of up to 15 hours. These days many farmers have switched to nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizer, which run off and cause water pollution.
http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat9/sub63/item1892.html
Folks might also be interested in reading about the original green revolution. It is credited with saving over a billion lives. The Wikipedia entry is pretty good. It states “The basic approach was the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers.” There is of course more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
The green revolution had a large impact on agriculture in Asia because it raised the productivity of land. The United States had abundant land, what it needed to do was to raise the productivity of people working the land. That is why mechanization played a key role in the US, but no role in the green revolution.
What a mess. Like this is shocking.