[BCFSN] Press Release - F2CC + WKF to offer Farm to School Grants in BC and ON

[JK Bays]

How Bill Gates Is Causing the Collapse of Traditional Farming and
Local Food Economies
Land grabs, seed control and GMOs. Welcome to the new world order of
industrialized agriculture, courtesy of the Gates Foundation.
*By* *Simone Adler <http://www.alternet.org/authors/simone-adler>* /
Other Worlds <http://www.otherworldsarepossible.org/>
*December 4, 2015*

   -

*[From a presentation by Mariam Mayet.]*

Our farmer-managed seed systems in Africa are being criminalized and
displaced by a very aggressive green revolution
<http://acbio.org.za/tag/green-revolution/> project of corporate
occupation by big multinational companies. This violent agrarian
transformation is facing profound objection. African farmer
organizations are outraged because decisions have been made and
imposed on us in a very patronizing, patriarchal way, as if the
agrarian vision and solution has been designed for us.

The Gates Foundation <http://grist.org/article/gates/> is funding the
green revolution, along with the many governments linked to the old
hub of capitalism
<http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2799927/grabbing_africas_seeds_usaid_eu_and_gates_foundation_back_agribusiness_seed_takeover.html>,
including your government [the US], the UK and the Netherlands. It is
working in very close partnership with around 80 African seed
companies. The Gates Foundation is the kingpin
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/nov/04/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-grants-usa-uk-africa>
in charge of coordinating the various green revolution initiatives
taking place in Africa.

The green revolution projects are a very expensive technological
package for farmers to buy into. Tens of millions of small-scale,
resource-poor farmers cannot afford the high costs of inputs unless
they’re subsidized by our governments or your taxpayer money. This
money goes into the public purse and out to agribusiness such as
Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred for hybrid or improved seed and
agrochemicals.

Investment has become a euphemism for land grabs, disposition and
dislocation of our communities. We’ve already seen the beginnings of
corporate control and concentration of our seed sector. Monsanto and
Pioneer Hi Bred, both U.S. multinational companies, control most of
the hybrid maize market in southern Africa. Through the acquisition of
South Africa’s maize company, Panaar Seed, by Pioneer HiBred, hybrid
pioneer [seeds] will make a lot of incursions [elsewhere] into Africa.

We see and fear a great deal of social dislocation, of collapse of our
farming systems — and it’s already happened. In
industrialized-agriculture countries like South Africa, farmers have
become completely deskilled and divorced from production decisions,
which are made in laboratories or in far-away board rooms.

In Uganda and other east African countries where the banana is a
staple food, the Gates Foundation has invested millions of dollars
into a genetically engineered banana project
<http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2648196/why_is_bill_gates_backing_gmo_red_banana_biopiracy.html>.
Their idea is to enable Ugandans and other east Africans to access
vitamin A by commercially growing a banana genetically engineered to
produce beta carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A, as if a
diverse diet won’t give Africans this vitamin.

Ugandans grow around 27 varieties or more of bananas. So this super
banana project is a Trojan horse; it’s very similar to the golden rice
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/sunday-review/golden-rice-lifesaver.html?_r=0>
they’ve been trying to commercialize since the mid-80s, which has gone
nowhere after a huge expenditure
<http://healthimpactnews.com/2011/gates-foundation-invests-in-gm-golden-rice-despite-untested-claims/>
of money. They’ve even started the process of feeding trials of the GM
banana <http://afsafrica.org/afsa-open-letter-opposing-human-feeding-trials-involving-gm-banana/>
to US citizens at Iowa State University
<http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/07/08/325796731/globe-trotting-gmo-bananas-arrive-for-their-first-test-in-iowa>.
It’s a way to capture the commercial markets and pry open countries
that are closed to GMOs, like Uganda.

The likes of Gates revile peasant farming systems as backward and
responsible for poverty and starvation in Africa. It’s as if there’s a
concerted effort to make these systems obsolete, to do away with them.
They’re ugly, they have to go, and they have to go now. But 80 percent
of our population live in rural areas and about 70 percent of income
is generated from agriculture, so what is going to happen when they
empty out our rural areas? Where are all these people going to go?

I want you to reimagine Africa as a vibrant continent where farmers
are in control of their seed systems, are proud of their knowledge
systems, share seeds from generation to generation through the age-old
practice of exchange where they are self-reliant on a huge diversity
of seeds under their control, where women play an important role in
production decisions, seed selection, and breeding — and where our
local food economies find their roots.

*[This is the second article in a **series*
<http://otherworldsarepossible.org/african-seed-food-sovereignty-series>*
which features interviews with grassroots African leaders working for
seed and food sovereignty, the decolonization of Africa's food system,
and the preservation of traditional farming practices. This series is
made possible with support from New Field Foundation
<http://www.newfieldfound.org/grants.regional.solution.html> and
Grassroots International
<http://www.grassrootsonline.org/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwtO2wBRCu0d2dkvjVi5cBEiQAMEIVGbehk2xDiDr0cs5XWY2O3pZg7H-rofdX15TBHOumgfsaAiDi8P8HAQ>.
The beautiful logo is a gift to us from artist Ricardo Levins Morales
<http://www.rlmartstudio.com/>. Many thanks to Lizzie Fainberg for
translation of the presentation.]*

Simone Adler is the Operations and Harvesting Justice Coordinator at
Other Worlds. As a water rights activist, Simone has dedicated her
life’s work to water justice issues worldwide. Her
internationally-distributed how-to guide advises communities affected
by large dams on ways to engage with the hydropower industry’s
dam-assessment tool. Contact her at simone.otherworlds at gmail.com.

Dawn Morrison,

BC Food Systems Network
Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty
C/O 555 East 55th Avenue
Vancouver, B.C, V5X 1N6
Mobile: 778.879.5106
Email: dmo6842 at gmail.com
Website: www.indigenousfoodsystems.org
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