Gates Foundation invests in Monsanto: Both profit at the expense of African farmers

[Hannah Bell]

Seattle, WA – Farmers and civil society organizations around the world are outraged by the recent discovery of further connections between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and agribusiness titan Monsanto. Last week, a financial website published the Gates Foundation’s investment portfolio, including 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock with an estimated worth of $23.1 million purchased in the second quarter of 2010 (see the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission). This marks a substantial increase from its previous holdings, valued at just over $360,000 (see the Foundation’s 2008 990 Form).

“The Foundation’s direct investment in Monsanto is problematic on two primary levels,” said Dr. Phil Bereano, University of Washington Professor Emeritus and recognized expert on genetic engineering. “First, Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast serious doubt on the Foundation’s heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an enormous conflict of interests.”

Monsanto has already negatively impacted agriculture in African countries. For example, in South Africa in 2009, Monsanto’s genetically modified maize failed to produce kernels and hundreds of farmers were devastated. According to Mariam Mayet, environmental attorney and director of the Africa Centre for Biosafety in Johannesburg, some farmers suffered up to an 80% crop failure. While Monsanto compensated the large-scale farmers to whom it directly sold the faulty product, it gave nothing to the small-scale farmers to whom it had handed out free sachets of seeds. “When the economic power of Gates is coupled with the irresponsibility of Monsanto, the outlook for African smallholders is not very promising,” said Mayet. Monsanto’s aggressive patenting practices have also monopolized control over seed in ways that deny farmers control over their own harvest, going so far as to sue—and bankrupt—farmers for “patent infringement.”

News of the Foundation’s recent Monsanto investment has confirmed the misgivings of many farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates in Africa, among them the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, who commented, “We have long suspected that the founders of AGRA— the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—had a long and more intimate affair with Monsanto.” Indeed, according to Travis English, researcher with AGRA Watch, “The Foundation’s ownership of Monsanto stock is emblematic OF A DEEPER, MORE LONG-STANDING INVOLVEMENT WITH THE CORPORATION, PARTICULARLY IN AFRICA." In 2008, AGRA Watch, a project of the Seattle-based organization Community Alliance for Global Justice, uncovered many linkages between the Foundation’s grantees and Monsanto. For example, some grantees (in particular about 70% of grantees in Kenya) of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)—considered by the Foundation to be its “African face”— work directly with Monsanto on agricultural development projects. Other prominent links include high-level Foundation staff members who were once senior officials for Monsanto, such as Rob Horsch, formerly Monsanto Vice President of International Development Partnerships and current Senior Program Officer of the Gates Agricultural Development Program.

http://www.seattleglobaljustice.org/2010/08/for-immediate-release-gates-foundation-invests-in-monsanto/

[Hannah Bell]

1. Gates Foundation: Getting round Africa's GM regulations

Based on profile of Robert Paarlberg
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Robert_Paarlberg

Robert Paarlberg - an advisor to Monsanto's CEO, and to USAID - has "recently completed major studies of regional policy harmonization toward biotechnology in eastern and southern Africa, for the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) on the politics of accepting biofortified food crops in developing countries, commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation."

Paarlberg's role as Monsanto CEO's Advisor would seem to tie in very neatly with the 2009 $5.4 million award by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the heavily Monsanto-funded Danforth Center. An article in the St Louis-Post Dispatch, Monsanto's home-town newspaper, baldly says that the Gates money will go towards getting round Africa's GM regulations: "The $5.4 million will go to developing the crops in the field, to safety assessments and overcoming regulatory hurdles" to the adoption of GM biofortified food crops in Africa.

It should not be forgotten, of course, that Rob Horsch, a senior Monsanto executive, is now part of the Gates Foundation, as is Lawrence Kent of the Monsanto-funded Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Both Horsch and Kent are working for Gates on the funding of projects aimed at the developing world. The Danforth Center's then president , Roger Beachy, said of their appointment that it "won't hurt to have two people familiar with St. Louis researchers holding the strings to the Gates Foundation's large purse".

[Hannah Bell]

2. The Gates Foundations, like other mega-philanthropies, use their financial power to push policies

that they have decided are “needed.” In this case, Gates has decided that GMOs are the solution for African agriculture. In 2009, the Gates Foundation gave $5.4 million to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, as part of its Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative. This funding went to the creation and management of the BioSafety Resource Network (BRN), and to research under the Gates’ Grand Challenges #9 Project, which seeks to develop nutritionally “enhanced” crop varieties of cassava, banana, sorghum and rice for subsistence farmers in the Global South. The Danforth Center states that the, “Results of this research will help to reduce the burden of malnutrition and … will support the creation and management of a resource network that will help African scientists incorporate biotech advances into subsistence farming.”

Among the key funders of The Danforth Center is the Monsanto Fund, the “philanthropic” arm of the Monsanto Company. One of the Fund’s main goals is, “Nutritional Improvement through Agriculture: Working to implement sustainable agricultural improvements through education and research. Focus areas include field techniques, education in the areas of nutrition and vitamin deficiency and reducing the impact of pest and virus’ on subsistence crops,” and to do this philanthropic work in areas where the company has important interests. This means that, like most philanthropic organizations set up by corporations, their business interests are barely distinguishable from their charitable ones. Monsanto—like other agri-corporations–has re-branded genetic engineering with a softer touch. Namely, they have painted themselves as concerned with the welfare of the world’s poor. In truth, these corporations are concerned with social responsibility only to the extent that it allows them to maintain good public relations and their bottom-line. At a deeper level, corporate agendas and philanthropic agendas are linked to US policy, and are thereby granted legitimacy and enormous influence over global political systems.

Given scientific data that discount the claims of genetic engineering, why would the “beneficent” structures of food aid and philanthropy remain tied to claims of GE’s usefulness in the Global South, particularly in Africa? According to numerous academics, policy observers, and activists, these structures are not about hunger. They are about capitalism and philanthro-capitalism: the opening of markets, the spending of wealth through tax-free foundations in order to surround wealthy principals with the aura of altruism, the expropriation of valuable resources at the lowest cost, the perpetuation of the myth that technology solves all problems, even social ones, and the intentional obfuscation of the exploitative roles of corporations.

http://www.seattleglobaljustice.org/2010/05/agra-watch-paper/

[AlecBGreen]

3. I can guess why

2 reasons (strictly personal conjecture)

#1) Bill sees Monsanto as a good investment opportunity. Seeing how the USDA and the latest farm bill were still heavily tilted to favor mega-farms planting GMO crops, I can see why he would think that.

#2) Bill is a computer geek and thinks all problems can be solved with technology. In other words, he does not think we can feed the worlds hungry with 'old-school' agricultural techniques. While I personally believe that tech CAN solve many of our problems, I disagree strongly with the supposed need for GMO crops to feed the world. I have seen with my own eyes small scale agriculture outproduce big farms, and quite handily at that. Just say no to GMO.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. But he cures malaria!!

:)

[Rage for Order]

5. The stock purchase, in and of itself, isn't really noteworthy

The http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Documents/foundation-fact-sheet.pdf">total endowment of the Gates Foundation is $33 billion. A stock holding of $23 million represents about .007% of the total endowment. They could put the $33 billion into a savings account that pays 0.5% interest annually and earn $165 million per year. If the investment in Monsanto were to triple in value overnight it would barely amount to budget dust in the grand scheme of things as it relates to the asset holdings of the Gates Foundation.

eta: If Gates really wanted to be in bed with Monsanto his foundation could just buy the company outright. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MON">Monsanto's current market capitalization is $30.95 billion. The Gates Foundation would have $2 billion leftover after purchasing the entire company.

:shrug:

[Hannah Bell]

13. he is in bed with monsanto. the joint ventures, r&d funded, & shared personnel = long list.

[earth mom]

6. Monsanto is the DEVIL. Gates is TOTALLY exposed for this! I've long thought his foundation

was mostly bullshit. This proves it! :puke:

[Ron Green]

7. A fundamental truth the Gates Foundation doesn't know (or won't admit):

If humans are to survive, we must separate our happiness from economic growth.

[elehhhhna]

8. teh gats found., if you look carefully, funds alotta causes that conveniently

protect and fight for patent protection, globally.

[Hannah Bell]

14. yes, patent protection, intellectual property, the regime of licensing is one of gates' big

investment & lobbying areas.

[Panaconda]

9. Soya for Africa – The Gates Foundation opens door for Cargill

Cape Town – The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to grant US$8 million to develop a soya value chain in Africa, in partnership with US non-profit organisation TechnoServe and agricultural commodity trading giant Cargill. The announcement was made at the Soy Innovation Africa Conference held in Cape Town 26th and 27th August 2010.

The project is meant to run for four years, commencing initially in Mozambique and Zambia where it is aimed at 37 000 small-scale farmers. The model will be replicated in other regions at a later time.

The ACB has released a report titled "The Gates Foundation and Cargill push Soya onto Africa" wherein it argues that the Gates project is aimed at enabling commodities giant, Cargill, to capture a hitherto untapped African soya market and eventually introduce GM soya onto the continent where reception to GMOs remains chilly.

Soya is sought after by the rapidly expanding global livestock and agrofuels sectors. Currently Africa produces less than 1% of global soya, while the USA, Brazil and Argentina dominate the market. Cargill is the biggest global player in the production and trade in soya, with heavy investments in Latin America where genetically modified (GM) soya mono-crops have displaced rural populations and caused environmental devastation. It was estimated that in the 2004/2005 growing season in Brazil, 1.2 million hectares of the Amazon rainforest was deforested as a consequence of soya expansion.

...

http://www.combat-monsanto.co.uk/spip.php?article613

[ajkmsteph]

10. bull seed

...... “First, Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast serious doubt on the Foundation’s heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an enormous conflict of interests.”

#1 most farmers who use Monsanto seed are small farmers and they are using teh seed on many acres becuase it gives them a lot of value. Framers in India have greatly reduced insecticides and raised yields because of Gm crops.
#2 Teh gates foundation working with AATF and WEMA and Monsanto are brining drought tolerant corn to africa for free - no fees to growers - don't you think farmers should get what the US farmers have? and for free?
If their products were faulty why do farmers keep on buying their seed - they only have about 35% share in the US but their customers keep on buying _ why is that?

#3 99% of framers in teh US pay for the technology that Monsanto provides but a few don't -- why should they get something for free when other pay - that is called theft in other businesses

[Lucky Luciano]

12. Wow! MON hires PR people to scan the net for people saying bad things about them!

Are you well paid?

[ajkmsteph]

11. Phil who?

teh only thing that Phil Bereano, is an expert on is raising money for himself - where are his creditially on the science of GM crops? What is his experience? All he references is other activists who do nothing but complain. What is wrong with a company actually doing good for a change? and trying to help versus the blogers and activists who are just anti -this or that. Isn't it about time they were productive contributors to society? I can't see a single publication by him that is positive about any technology. he is just and anti-technology activist. He is not an expert on GM and he has no credentials to be qualified to be an expert on its safety. I assume is you breath and use a light switch he would be against you

[Hannah Bell]

15. lol. Professor Emeritus in the field of Technology and Public Policy at the UW #11-ranked public

uni.