Big Ag Eyes Africa
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In the 1960s and 1970s, an agricultural scientist named Norman Borlaug began what he called The Green Revolution, to bring modern farming methods to indigenous people around the globe. The media at the time hailed him as a savior of starving people everywhere. He won international fame and prizes as a great humanitarian.
But what Borlaug really did was bring industrial agriculture to peasant cultures around the world, introducing them to chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fossil-fuel-powered heavy equipment, soil-destroying plowing techniques, and all the other problems of modern agriculture. Now the farmers no longer farmed using their traditional methods. Now their efforts resulted in money, much of which had to be paid to international corporations for the tools and chemicals needed to farm in the modern way.
It was The Green Revolution that gave Monsanto the idea for its take-over of the world’s seed supply by genetically altering and patenting seed, forcing farmers to buy their seed or pay steep fines for violating their patents, and pushing today’s farmers to use Roundup to suppress weeds.
Yet, sharing and saving seed is still a crucial part of traditional farming all over Africa, writes Heidi Chow, who works on Global Justice Now’s campaign to challenge the corporate take-over of Africa’s food systems as well as supporting the global movement for food sovereignty. She writes that governments, backed by multinational seed and chemical companies, are imposing oppressive seed laws that attack the continent’s main food producers and open the way to industrial agribusiness. Some are even calling it “the second Green Revolution.”
But Ghana’s women farmers are having none of it.
The corporate agenda for seeds is one where farmers are treated as passive consumers of corporate-controlled seed instead of indispensable knowledge bearers of seed varieties and protectors of seed diversity.
“My mother gave me some seeds to plant. And I’m also giving those seeds to my children to plant,” Esther Boakye Yiadom explained to Ms. Chow.
“So that is ongoing, every time we transfer to our children. And that is how all the women are doing it. We don’t buy, we produce it ourselves. I am having tomatoes and I don’t have okra. And another woman has okra. I’ll go to her and then beg for some of her okra seeds to plant.
“And then if another person also needs tomatoes from me and I have it, I’ll have to give to the person. Because you know every season changes, because maybe mine will not do well. But that person’s will do well. So next season we can get to plant. That’s why we exchange them.”
An oppressive new law–dubbed the Monsanto Law–in Ghana would bolster the power of multinational seed companies while restricting the rights of small farmers to keep and swap their seeds.
This bill will see the control of seeds being transferred away from small farmers and into the hands of large seed companies.
Today just 10 corporations control more than 75 percent of the world’s commercial seed market, although in Africa an estimated 80 percent of all seeds still come from farmer-managed seed systems–where farmers save, select and swap their own traditional or indigenous seed varieties.
Farmer-managed seed systems help to protect bio-diversity as farmers keep a wide variety of seeds. Seeds are selected both to maintain yield but also to preserve traits that respond to different climatic conditions, have certain tastes, appearance, and storability.
Commercial seeds, by comparison, are produced for high input mono-cropping farming systems and designed to produce high yields through the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Just like The Green Revolution—only on steroids.
The proposed legislation is one of the commitments that the Ghanaian government has made to be part of the G7’s New Alliance.
The G7 New Alliance claims to address food security and nutrition in Africa, but the scheme has been widely condemned by African civil society and farmers’ groups as a “new wave of colonialism.”
Instead of supporting small farmers across Africa, the scheme facilitates a grab for resources–such as land and seed–for multinational corporations that see Africa as the last frontier for untapped markets.
The Monsanto Law is a clear example of how this New Alliance is making it easier for large seed companies to get a foothold in Ghana at the expense of small farmers, and will reduce food security as farmers are restricted from saving and preserving seeds.
The proposed seed legislation will also help open the doors to GMO crops in Ghana, which is currently being fought in the courts as campaigners challenge the application for authorization of Bt rice and cowpeas.
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WHAT IS THE NEW ALLIANCE?
The UK government claims the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition will lift 50 million people in Africa out of poverty by 2022. That’s what they said about Borlaug’s Green Revolution in the 1970s, but it failed, leaving millions of small farmers in thrall to the agribusiness giants. This New Alliance will also benefit multinational companies at the expense of small-scale farmers and is likely to increase poverty and inequality in Africa.
Launched in 2012, the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition provides aid money from rich countries like the US and the UK, and helps big business invest in the African agricultural sector. But in return, African countries are required to change their land, seed and trade rules in favor of big business.
The New Alliance will make it easier for big corporations to grab land in Africa; prevent farmers from breeding, saving and exchanging seeds; heavily promote chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which increase farmers’ risk of debt as well as damaging the environment and farmers’ health; replace family farms with low paid, insecure jobs, and prevent countries from restricting crop exports, even at times of domestic shortage
Much of the aid money and investment promised as part of the New Alliance prioritizes crops for export, including tobacco, palm oil, and biofuel crops, rather than supporting small farmers to grow food crops sustainably for local consumption.
Ten African countries have signed up to the New Alliance: Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Benin, Malawi, Nigeria and Senegal. Around 50 multinational companies including Monsanto, Cargill and Unilever, and around 100 African companies, are also involved.
Jill Richardson, an organic food activist, wrote that “The G7 scheme does nothing to address the problems that are at the core of hunger and malnutrition but will serve only to further poverty and inequality.” She went on to tell stories of African peasant farmers who made more money by switching to organic farming than by using synthetic fertilizer.
Food First also criticized the New Alliance. “There’s a good reason why the 45 members of the New Alliance don’t want to hear from the people actually growing the food in Africa… farmers would say that Africa is actually a rich continent and it is the continued extraction of wealth by foreign corporations that causes poverty and hunger–that the first Green Revolution (Borlaug’s) did not bypass Africa; it failed. A new one spearheaded by the same institutions presently spreading GMOs and land grabbing throughout the continent will do more harm than good.”
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy was even harsher, calling the New Alliance “a sad excuse for an aid program.” They wrote: “How bad is this idea? Money is money, right? Wrong! The private sector is not just like government, only a little different. It is ENTIRELY different. Corporations are accountable to their shareholders, obliged to make a profit. They are not charities. They are bound by law, but not by the public interest… Corporations are not parties to the human rights covenants that oblige most governments to realize the universal human right to food.”
Oxfam International was also critical the new effort with a release titled, “G7 Food Security Alliance Answers Question Hungry People Have Not Asked.” They say that the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition “focuses too heavily on the role of the private sector to tackle the complex challenges of food insecurity in the developing world.” Instead, they called on G7 leaders to “keep the promises they have already made to help developing countries invest in sustainable solutions to hunger and poverty.” They add that “While there is a positive role for the private sector in the fight against global hunger, the plan’s top down approach does not reflect what many people in poor countries say they want or need” and that this new effort is “passing the buck on global hunger.”
It’s worse than passing the buck on global hunger. It’s part of Big Agribusiness’s plan to control the world’s food supply and bring the world’s farmers, big and small, to heel.
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AND LOOK WHO’S TRAVELING TO AFRICA
On their nine-day trip to Africa, Bill and Chelsea Clinton are traveling with 20 wealthy donors and foundation supporters, a group that includes fundraisers for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid and others who are expected to give generously to her campaign.
The trip, which marks Bill Clinton’s 12th visit to Africa, includes stops in Tanzania, Kenya, Liberia and Morocco. It’s designed to highlight the Clinton Foundation’s work on economic development and climate change, as well as on the empowerment of women and girls. It will culminate in a lavish conference in Marrakesh with the King of Morocco, funded by donors including a Moroccan-government-owned phosphate company, which POLITICO reported donated $1 million.
Hmmm—a phosphate company. Phosphorus is one of the three major fertilizers used in conventional agriculture, along with nitrogen and potassium. It’s also worth noting that among the donors invited to come along on the Africa trip is Beverly Dale, formerly of the biotechnology (GMO) industry.
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POPE FRANCIS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Pope Francis has made the religious case for tackling climate change, calling on his fellow Christians to become “Custodians of Creation” and issuing a dire warning about the potentially catastrophic effects of global climate change.
Speaking to a massive crowd in Rome, the first Argentinian pope delivered a short address in which he argued that respect for the “beauty of nature and the grandeur of the cosmos” is a Christian value, noting that failure to care for the planet risks apocalyptic consequences.
“Safeguard Creation,” he said. “Because if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!”
The pope centered his environmentalist theology around the biblical creation story in the book of Genesis, where God is said to have created the world, declared it “good,” and charged humanity with its care. Francis also made reference to his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, who was a famous lover of animals, and appeared to tie the ongoing environmental crisis to economic concerns—namely, instances where a wealthy minority exploits the planet at the expense of the poor.
“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude,” Francis said.
Francis also said that humanity’s destruction of the planet is a sinful act, likening it to self-idolatry.
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JUDGE RULES VERMONT GMO LABEL LAW IS LEGAL
A Vermont law that could make the state the first in the country to require labeling of genetically modified food has been allowed by a federal judge to stand for now, despite opposition by food industry groups.
U.S. District Court Judge Christina Reiss in Burlington ruled against the Grocery Manufacturers’ Association and other industry groups in their request for a preliminary order to block the law from going into effect as scheduled on July 1, 2016.
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MEASLES ATTACKS THE IMMUNE SYSTEM, LEAVES KIDS VULNERABLE
Scientists have known that measles attacks the immune system, but only recently have discovered how hard and thoroughly it damages it, according to a study published in Science magazine’s May 8, 2015, issue.
Johns Hopkins University epidemiologists studied children from England, Wales, Denmark, and the United States who had contracted measles and found that their mortality rate from other infectious diseases was significantly higher than among children who had been vaccinated against measles.
The scientists said that monkey studies suggest that the measles virus erases the immune system’s memory, so that children who had the disease were less able to ward off other diseases. “Measles is much worse than people thought,” says Michael Mina, an immunologist at Emory University in Atlanta. “It has these long term consequences and has gone under the radar for decades.” The published study says that the damage to children’s immune systems lasts for up to three years.
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