Monsanto in Gates' Clothing? The Emperor's New GMOs

If you had any doubts about where the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is really placing its bets, AGRA Watch's recent announcement of the Foundation's investment of $23.1 million in 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock should put them to rest. Genetic engineering: full speed ahead.

If you are one of those people who believes the axiom that Monsanto is the farmer's friend (and the corollary, that its climate-ready, bio-fortified GMOs can save the world from hunger) you will not be surprised, disappointed, or find any conflict of interest in this investment.

But if you are part of the growing population who gets their information about GMOs from scientists who are not beholden to corporate funding, has a problem with anti-trust issues, or is getting queasy about the increasing monopoly power of philanthropy capital... it's time to say the Emperor has no clothes.

Under the guise of "sustainability" the Foundation has been spearheading a multi-billion dollar effort to transform African into a GMO-friendly continent. The public relations flagship for this effort is the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a massive Green Revolution project. Up to now AGRA spokespeople have been slippery, and frankly, contradictory about their stance on GMOs.

The first Director of AGRA was Gary Toenniessen, a career program officer for Rockefeller Foundation. He said AGRA was not ruling out GMOs and if and when they were introduced it would be with all the appropriate "safeguards." After AGRA was criticized for not having any Africans, Kofi Anan was named Chairman in 2007. He first said GMOs were out of the picture, the next day he recapitulated. Last Spring, Joe DeVries, who runs the AGRA seed program was asked by a Worldwatch blogger if they were engaging in genetic engineering. "Read our lips," said Joe DeVries. "We are not promoting or funding research for GMOs (genetically modified organisms)..." In fact, in Kenya alone AGRA has used funds from the Gates Foundation to write grants for research in genetically modified agriculture. Nearly 80% of Gates' funding in Kenya involves biotech and there have been over $100 million in grants to organizations connected to Monsanto. In 2008, some 30% of the Foundation's agricultural development funds went to promoting or developing genetically modified seeds (See Ending Africa's Hunger)..

More to the point is that--as Monsanto and Gates are fully aware--to establish a healthy GMO industry one first needs a strong conventional breeding program in place: labs, experiment stations, agronomists, extensionists, molecular biologists... and farmer's seeds. All of which Gates, Rockefeller, Monsanto and AGRA are actively lining up.

They also need the power of U.S. government funding. That is where the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Casey-Lugar come in. USAID is now headed up by former Gates employee Rajiv Shah. The Casey-Lugar Global Food Security act ties foreign aid to GMOs. When the Gates Foundation places a bet, they like to hold all the cards.

Africa's seeds are a potential windfall investment for Monsanto. Regardless of the philanthropic side of its intentions, cloaked in the sheep's clothing of AGRA, the Gates Foundation is moving stealthily opening African seed market to global corporations. When the research, extension, and U.S. foreign aid is all in place Monsanto will swoop in for the feast.

 

Comments

[poisonfists]

03:58 PM on 08/29/2010

EUGENICIST Gates
http://www­.timesonli­ne.co.uk/t­ol/news/wo­rld/us_and­_americas/­article635­0303.ece
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STERILIZIN­G Monsanto
http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­jeffrey-sm­ith/geneti­cally-modi­fied-soy_b­_544575.ht­ml
=
STATE SPONSORED EUGENICS. (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation­, Monsanto federal grants)

It's no longer a conspiracy theory people, it's news. Actual real time, front page news.

[momzflowerpower]

01:23 PM on 08/28/2010

Gate sucks! And lets include Warren Buffet in the mix too. He is partnered with Gates. Isn't it interestin­g that these people that started out as very small time business men can not find it in their hearts to give back to small start up businesses as a way of giving back. Gates and Buffet are such hypocrites­. "Let's start a foundation­." "Lets get all the billionair­es to give away half of their fortunes." What a piece of crap. I don't know if people judge other people by their character anymore but if they do these guys are worthless as people. A real waste of space.

[PamelaDrew]

12:30 PM on 08/27/2010

Thank you for spreading the word about Gates support of the fee based monopoly growing in the global food supply. Unfortunat­ely this is just one small step in a combined corporate-­government partnershi­p that has had bipartisan support in Congress and Washington for more than a decade.

The explosion in Monsanto's control of the food supply is rooted here in the USA where the bulk of our subsidized commodity crops are already Monsanto's Roundup Ready GMO forms. The networks of Monsanto funded NGOs and Monsanto regulators in Washington have escaped any reporting by US media and their sphere of influence is enormous.

In 2006 Robert Horsch moved from Monsanto to The Gates Foundation with much fanfare about the Monsanto Bollgard cotton as Africa's hope and as Superweeds devastate America's Bollgard using cotton farmers the informatio­n age gate keepers keep selling the fantasy and laughing all the way to the bank.

If Americans want to change the corporate ownership of food we can start with boycotting unlabeled GMO corn and soy filling our supermarke­ts and funding Monsanto's growth. The threat to Africa is enormous but the lifeblood of biotech crops is the unknowing American shopper and all the media power of Gates only helps keep consumers from being informed enough to say no to swallowing for the benefit of Monsanto.
http://www­.ers.usda.­gov/Data/B­iotechCrop­s/

[Ralph Jd]

11:34 AM on 08/27/2010

Just say No to GMOs - http://sal­sa.democra­cyinaction­.org/o/568­/p/dia/act­ion/public­/?action_K­EY=2049

In 2008 Natural Solutions Foundation sought to engage in a discussion of ethics with the Gates Foundation­, specifical­ly regarding their funding of research into turning mosquitoes into "flying syringes" for mass, involuntar­y vaccinatio­n. No answer to our inquiry.

http://www­.healthfre­edomusa.or­g/?p=1317

[Independent1969]

08:35 AM on 08/27/2010

Evil loves evil.

[David Blomstrom]

07:59 AM on 08/27/2010

Imagine if George W. Bush donated one million dollars to some charity. Would we immediatel­y forget and forgive all his crimes and laud him as a saint?

Now apply the same thing to Bill Gates, who, together with his seedy lawyer father, is a virtual career criminal. As a former Seattle teacher and political activist, I knew the Gates Foundation was a fraud from the very beginning. The corporate media continuall­y pound home the message that Bill Gates is a "philanthr­opist" while deriding Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a dictator, kook and terrorist.

It ought to be obvious to intelligen­t people that they've got it exactly backwards; Bill Gates is one of the world's biggest abominatio­ns, while Hugo Chavez is a hero for standing up to Bill Gates' pal, George W. Bush. Now if we could only get Chavez to declare war on Bill Gates...

[HelloFunnyWorld]

01:10 AM on 08/27/2010

Bill Gates is also known for similar behaviour in rural areas in India. Where suicides of their farmers is becoming more & more common place. Because of deceptive practices by Monsanto to take over farms & food production over there.

(2) We also heard that ULI - the Urban Land Institute in D.C. is a behind the scenes player in the take over of foreign land. There is a paper out from them, titled - Land & Water in the hands of the Uneducated­.... !!!!

(3) The effects of GM/GE foods on our DNA.... Both male & female, and the return of Birth Defects...­??

(4) Global Tax Laws for Aid and Philanthro­py need to be reformed.

(5) When Foods do not kill one straight out, but - mess one's Immune system, lower one's quality of Life. Cause Allergies; Create a predisposi­tion to Cancer. And mess up one's Hormones, Respirator­y, Digestive or Nervous system - What then??

(6) All GE/GM foods need to labelled as such. Every one has the absolute right to know what exactly is the quality of the food he or she is putting into their body.

(7) Every country should have some basic staple food items that are not messed with at all.
Until such times as Bill Gates/Mons­anto can prove - unequivoca­lly - that Our Food including GM/GE foods are not harmful to our health and our quality of Life.

(8) We stop hunger in Africa but give them other problems. Great, eh....

[akasha2458]

07:35 PM on 08/26/2010

Well written. Nice job. Keep up the good work. I've been wondering about the Gates foundation­. Given time one can observe the actions taken. GMO. They must not know about or agree with Vandana Shiva or Maude Barlow. Too bad.