Help for African agriculture: Some question the Gates role Critics from far and near will voice their concerns in Seattle at a Town Hall event on Sunday. Print Email Farming in Malawi Farming in Malawi Travis Lupick/Flickr By Martha Baskin Daniel Maingi weighs his words carefully. In Seattle to challenge the Gates Foundations Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa or AGRA, which invests in agriculture to reduce hunger and poverty; the Kenyan food rights activist and Director of Growth Partners Africa, says he admires Gates’ public health work. But when it comes to making sure food is available for all, “Gates has got it all wrong.” The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation looks at the AGRA programs, quite differently, pointing to the struggles of even some small farmers to feed their families. Along with criticisms, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa – often called AGRA – has drawn considerable support in Africa. Indeed the AGRA efforts to increase food output in Africa, somewhat along the lines of Asian and Latin American agricultural advances decades ago, have been both widely praised and criticized. The original green revolution began in the 1940s in Mexico, spreading around Latin America and Asia, as agronomist Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, pioneered increases in the yields of hybrid wheat through heavy fertilization. The debate around genetically modified organisms has also fueled some of the criticisms of AGRA. When the Alliance issued a report last year that referred to concerns about GMO crops in Africa as “fear of the unknown,” critics called the report an insult to small farmers. Maingi will share his views at a public event at 7 p.m. Sunday at Town Hall. Sponsored by the Seattle based Community Alliance for Global Justice, the event, “The Global Struggle for Food Sovereignty,” includes leaders from South Africa, Ethiopia, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Maingi likens AGRA policies to those of colonialists who conquered Africa centuries ago. Africas new green revolution, begun in 2006 with investment from both the Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, is transforming the continents agriculture sector, but its doing so largely on behalf of multinational companies intent on promoting genetically modified seeds and fertilizers, he says. After Kenya gained independence from the British in 1963 the country began wide scale investment in a variety of maize, millet, sorghum and beans, none of them GMOs, explains Maingi. All have proven resilient to Kenyas arid conditions and climate change. Kenyas native seeds also compete favorably with green revolution seeds, which require high-cost fertilizers, often beyond the reach of small scale farmers. But with lobbying from multinationals, says Maingi, Kenya recently passed two law, the Crops Act of 2013 and amendments to the Seed Act. Many governments in Africa have been making changes to their seed laws, which supporters see as modernizing the nations’ practices. But Maingi sees the laws as draconian, saying that if farmers dont plant seeds from dealerships controlled by multinationals such as DuPont, the French seed giant Groupe Limagrain, Monsanto and others, they can be at risk of being accused of “dealing with illegal seeds.” Many African governments, including his native Kenya, are so cash-strapped, he says, “that if anybody comes in with even a little money, say a million or more, theyre given free run to control almost anything. AGRA frequently works in tandem with USAID, the agency charged with foreign economic development by John F. Kennedy in 1961, says Maingi, along with the World Bank and the IMF. Theyre all pushing Africa to become “an open market for the business of agriculture.” And that, he says means fertilizers and it means new seeds. “As far as community seed banks are concerned, theyre becoming an endangered species.” Asked for comment, the Gates Foundation initially provided only a brief statement. “Across Africa, smallholder farmers struggle to raise enough food to feed their families and have enough left over to send their kids to school,” the statement said in part. “At the foundation, we believe in investigating any solution that will make that easier. That includes using new approaches to old methods, and also using science and technology to develop the seeds that can combat the effects of a changing climate.” __________________ Heather Day, Director Community Alliance for Global Justice 206-724-2243 (c)
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 19:23:07 +0000
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