Bill Gates’ ‘Green Revolution’ v. Agroecology in Africa & India

“Among other things, we might simply not agree

Africans have long been told that our agriculture is backward and should be abandoned for a 21st-century version of the Green Revolution that enabled India to feed itself. Western science and technology, in the form of seeds modified by science and technology, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, petroleum-fueled machinery and artificial irrigation were key to that miracle, we are informed, and we too need to tread that path.

A primary proponent of this view is the Cornell Alliance for Science (CAS), founded in 2014 to “depolarize the charged debate” around genetically modified (GM) seeds. With $22 million in funding thus far from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the CAS in fact consistently defends GM seeds, arguing that they are healthy, productive and environmentally friendly, while attacking agroecology as economically and socially regressive.

In contrast, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), which represents more than 200 million farmers, fishers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, women, consumers and others across all but five African countries, holds that agroecology is what our continent needs. Small-scale, ecofriendly cultivation methods using indigenous knowledge and inputs and cutting-edge science increase the variety, nutritive value and quantity of foods produced on farms while stabilizing rural economies, promoting gender equity and protecting biodiversity.”

Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)

The Alliance For Food Sovereignty in Africa  (AFSA) is a Pan African platform representing small holder farmers, pastoralists, hunter/gatherers, indigenous peoples, citizens and environmentalists from Africa who possess a strong voice that shapes policy on the continent in the area of community rights, family farming, promotion of traditional knowledge and knowledge systems, the environment and natural resource management.

AFSA is championing Small African Family Farming/Production Systems based on agro-ecological and indigenous approaches, that sustain food sovereignty and the livelihoods of communities. AFSA is also resisting the corporate industrialisation of African agriculture which will result in massive land grabbing, destruction of indigenous biodiversity and ecosystems, displacement of indigenous peoples especially the pastoral communities and hunter gatherers and the destruction of their livelihoods and cultures.

For more information about AFSAS, please visit their website www.afsafrica.org

@TimothyWSchwab

Investigative journalist. Writing book--#TheGoodBillionaire--on #BillGates & #GatesFoundation.

A few excerpts, but also worthy of reading entirely:

“Last month, Bill Gates’ divorce and allegations of sexual misconduct made headlines in Western media. But in India, the billionaire philanthropist and his foundation have been under criticism for months for completely different reasons. Indians have called for Gates’ arrest over alleged violations of medical ethics and laws by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in the country. #ArrestBillGates trended on Indian Twitter in May, part of a campaign calling Indian authorities to charge the BMGF and Gates for conducting illegal medical trials on vulnerable groups in two Indian states.

This is not the first time the BMGF or Bill Gates has been at the receiving end of public anger in India. This latest outburst is part of constantly growing anger against Gates and his foundation in India. As early as April 2021, Gates received flak for expressing his reluctance about sharing COVID-19 vaccine technologies with developing countries like India. After severe public criticism in India and abroad, BMGF Chief Executive Officer Mark Suzman officially supported a temporary waiver on vaccine IP.

Gates has also been criticized by Indian farmer groups, who have been protesting on the border of the national capital New Delhi for six months. The farmers are protesting against controversial laws promoting privatization of agriculture passed by the Hindu nationalist government, and they see Gates as a supporter of such efforts. Dainik Jagran, one of the largest Hindi newspapers in the country, reported on June 8 that farmers burned an effigy of Bill Gates at one of the protest sites due to his support for the privatization of agriculture in India."

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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is measured by how much anything can be "married" to capitalism. Non government responses to slow moving humanitarian disasters must conform to a business plan, just to pass muster with the tax codes. So we have a system that strives to do more than "break even", and condone a situation where it takes $.90 of each dollar to give a poor person a dime. Capitalist charity begins, and ends, at home.

Beware the wealthy arrogant American waving his books of Milton Friedman and saying "I'm here to help".

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Snode Nobody talks about how Europeans were their first victims; that might be useful to bear in mind.

Speaking of which, if the "Wokeness" cult can find the time to force a mastectomy on a cartoon rabbit, you'd think they'd be in Full-Warpath made to stop what sounds like actual frigging colonialism - against their favorite victim-continent, no less!

Back when Marvel's Black Panther movie came out, I got an E-mail from one of the many all-purpose "Progressive SomethingSomething" PACs LITERALLY just to urge me to "pledge" to see it; the writing style reminded me of some Scientologist pamphlet-pushers I ran into years ago - happy, but in a vaguely sick and disturbing "what have you been smoking" kind of way. I am kicking myself now for not keeping that E-mail just as proof it happened, but at the time, I just wanted to get it the hell out of my in-box. It kinda killed my interest in seeing ANY more Marvel movies. Where's the PAC E-mailing me to boycott Microsoft or whatever?

The other day, I got an E-mail from the Green Party Black Caucus (or whatever they called themselves) asking me to support a reparations bill; yeah, NO - there's a reason nobody talked about reparations in the '000s except FOX News. The Holocaust is still in living memory, and no doubt robbed MY family of an unguessable sum of property as well as lives - I'm not interested in giving miserable Eastern Europeans reason to think (as my previously-mentioned Soviet-expat history professor - whose personal specialties included the Holocaust and related topics! - once characterized their typical reactions) "Dammit, he MISSED some of you!". Why are we so obsessed with what happened over 150 years ago yet hardly a word is spoken about the worldwide prevalence of slavery TODAY?

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

@Snode

even more than usual, so i may not be taking your meaning. but in the case of multi-billionaire 'philanthropists' like gates, buffets, and others, once they begin 'giving their money to help the world', their fortunes increase many times over. wise investments along the way, of course...)

and fucking A: bill not only buys an epic PR team, but science as well! shame on cornell's 'Alliance for Science', just look at their headline op-eds, aka: 'study finds'.

RT.com loves bill, and runs his "poor poor pitiful me! what lies they tell!" quotes every month or so. his eugenics chips are in the alternative news and twittersphere again, as well.

reminds me of BP having bought university studies to confirm that the seafood in the gulf was 'safe to eat' a few weeks after the Deepwater Horizon blew up. sure, spread corexit around over the oil, what you can't see any longer can't hurt you, can it?

Genetically modified food is healthy for living beings!

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@wendy davis Just, there is no difference between our government and the 1%. Our government and the 1% are 100% capitalist and anything they do is done by the rules of capitalism. The rules of capitalism doesn't recognize pure charity. If they wanted to do something altruistic, they have the means to do so.

Bush 1's charity "A Thousand Points of Light" had the 90 cents out of every dollar going to overhead and salaries, and when that was pointed out the consensus was, well, that's not an out of line ratio.

So, if it's food, there will be agribusiness , medicine, big pharma, all having direct access to our representatives. We used to have programs modelled on the Peace Corps in the villages and towns, directly aiding people. Now there are corporations with their axes to grind masquerading as non profits and charities dealing directly with client nations leaders, supported by our government. This is the pattern since Reagan.

Which is why some of the most terrifying words are "I'm from the 1%, and I'm here to help."

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wendy davis's picture

@Snode

and i'd add that the disappearing social safety net was built to stave off insurrections against the Lords of Capitalism.

green capitalism is seen most obviously/cynically at the world economic forum, as with prince charles hawking his 'green bonds', full of terms like 'net zero' and 'renewables' (not sustainables).

i'd lost this part earlier, but all i never knew about Evil Africom, spawn of NATO, i'd learned from crossed crocodiles long ago. at some point he'd switched topics as with this:

August 28, 2014, The fight against Big Ag and GMOs in Ghana , Posted by xcroc (in part)

The following is an article released by Food Sovereignty Ghana and published in a variety of sources throughout Ghana, Africa, and globally.

BAN ALL GM FOODS IN GHANA!

Food Sovereignty Ghana calls for an indefinite Moratorium or ban on the propagation, cultivation, raising, and growing of Genetically Modified Organisms in Ghana.

We call for a total ban on everything GMO, including but not limited to, the introduction into the environment, contained and confined use or field trials, import, export, GMO in transit, or placement on the market.

We demand that this ban be put in place until the science of GM foods and human health, as well as environmental impact, has been thoroughly studied and cleared as safe by independent science rather than corporate-driven, profit-oriented scientists and regulators, ridden with conflicts-of-interest.

There is a gigantic global attempt to impose GMOs into our food chain through deals made by transnational agribusiness corporations with our political elites, designed to limit public awareness and exclude public participation. The collusion between the biotech industry and politicians and regulators makes nonsense of their assurances that GM foods are safe.

Even if the highly questionable claims of increases in food or crop yields, or drought-resistant flood-resistant GM crops were true, the ever increasing amounts of pesticide toxins they contain should prohibit their production or use. Toxic food, regardless of abundance, does not replace safe and edible food.

GMOs contain massive quantities of pesticides, a huge health threat. Close to 100% of all commercial GMO crops are genetically engineered to contain pesticides, or to absorb huge amounts of pesticides without being killed. When we consume the plants, or eat animals that consume the plants, we consume those pesticides that can injure heart, lungs, nerves, digestion, blood, skin, immunity, and sexual function and development.

Genetically engineered Bt Crops are engineered to express (produce) the Bt toxin in its active form,. The active toxin is produced in every individual cell of the crops, thus making the entire crop a pesticide. When you eat a genetically modified Bt food crop you are eating pesticides. Bt crops are regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as pesticides (EPA document 735-F-02-013 May 2002). Promoters of GM foods downplay but it does not change the fact that Bt is a pesticide. This is common sense but unfortunately some people are trying so hard to prevent us from thinking for ourselves.

Vast quantities of GMO crops are herbicide resistant crops. These are grown both for human and for animal consumption. These crops are genetically engineered to absorb massive doses of pesticides that kill weeds, chemicals that are sprayed on the crops repeatedly, sometimes as many as 300 days out of the year. These chemicals are in fact chemical cocktails and include adjuvant chemicals designed to penetrate the plants and cause them to absorb even more of the pesticidal toxins. The adjuvant chemicals, close to 400 of them, are never tested. Testing is not required by law. How safe they are, or what they do when they enter our bodies is anybody’s guess.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the Doctors who understand, study and follow the effects of environmental factors on our health, issued a statement in 2009, on the dangers of GM food and advised all their members to prescribe non GM foods to their patients. Just last week, we saw in the news, a call by Lieutenant General Mi Zhen-yu, former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Military Science, on the Chinese government to“face up to reality” about the harm from genetically modified food.

The General provides specific numbers on the increases in birth defects, severe depression, precocious puberty in girls, autism, childhood cancers, male sperm quality and infertility, Parkinson’s disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and chronic kidney disease. “The situation is shocking.” Why are those who claim GMOs are safe are opposed to any long-term independent studies in toxicity? Why are they against labelling?

some nations ban GMOs altogether, including imports. i used to remember some of them. ; )

the thing is, gates, monsanto, bayer control much of the food supply, AND gates also runs the Svalbard native seed vault in...norway? nice trick, billy.

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@wendy davis but GMO plants can cross pollinate with traditional crops of the same type. Then each crop ends up with a GMO "fingerprint" essentially ceding that crop to Monsanto or Dow. After all, genetically that patented genome belongs to the companies that invented it. It's up to the farmer to prove he didn't "steal" the seed for that crop, whether or not he wanted GMO crops. Slick, eh?

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wendy davis's picture

@Snode

there were plenty of cases of 'pollination by wind drift' i recall now.

we just watched the final season of 'the wire' on DVD, and this began haunting my soul and heart. for bill and his ilk:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6WEy0eH8Xc]

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wendy davis's picture

dagnabbit. i'll abbreviate it:

Colin Todhunter (UK) has spent a lot of his career on busting GMO myths, both at the ecologist and mor recently at Countercurrents.

just 2 titles: Gates Unhinged: Dystopian Vision for Agrifood Must Not Succeed and Four Words Gates and His Pals Despise: Democracy & Minimum Support Price

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orlbucfan's picture

@wendy davis He was a hustler, still is, probably from birth. I consider him a plague just like Buffett, Musk, Bezos, C+IQ Zuckerberg, Soros, Murdock and the rest of the monied parasites. I wish a fatal POX would kill them off. Unfortunately, there would be plenty of scum to replace them.

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

snoopydawg's picture

@orlbucfan

and once they take off we close the country so they can’t renter?

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Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

me to think of 'inner space as a final frontier': permit them to have some lysergic acid and watch endless loops of the harm they've done to the planet and global citizens. Timothy Leary's thinking? ; )

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wendy davis's picture

@orlbucfan

Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

he's a hustler, and dangerous to boot, given his immense power (as well as the B&MG foundation. they even have their own tab at the guardian, for instance. he's the most famous doctor on the planet as well, but has no medical degree. he sort of controls the WHO, as well, and helped get the new chief Tedro ___ appointed, but neither is he a physician, which worries some of the past chiefs...who were.

i'd once posted about all the digging one of his detractors had done assembling many of the PR agencies and millions he'd spent for good MSM press coverage. by my reckoning, he's one of a kind, and i hope he didn't pass his darkest heart on to any of his three chirren.

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Several countries around the world have banned the use of GMOs.

European Union
France
Germany
Austria
Greece
Hungary
The Netherlands
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Bulgaria
Poland
Denmark
Malta
Slovenia
Italy
Croatia
Africa
Algeria
Madagascar
Asia
Turkey
Kyrgyzstan
Bhutan
Saudi Arabia
Americas
Belize
Ecuador
Peru
Venezuela

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Mary Bennett

wendy davis's picture

@Nastarana

i'd poked about last night and hadn't found anything that concise. what do "Americas" and "Asia" signify, do you suppose? Russia had banned them a few years ago, save for using them for experiments and information.

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The link wouldn't copy. I was surprised not to see Russia included. I believe Putin has said publicly that Russian ag can be successful exporting organic products.

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Mary Bennett

wendy davis's picture

@Nastarana

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