April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

stations, agronomists, extensionists, biologists and farmer seeds. He points
out that about 80% of the Gates Foundation's allocation to Kenya has gone
into biotech research; in 2008, about 30% of its agri-development funds
went into promoting and developing GM seeds.
GRAIN, an international non-profit that supports community-controlled and
biodiversity-based food systems, has been wary of public-private coalitions
like AGRA and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR).
It says their research programmes feed into the growth strategies of
corporations; further, the programmes often adopt elements of business
models of those very companies.
Delhi-based Shalini Bhutani, till recently representing GRAIN, sees a design
in the Gates Foundation's announcement of the Borlaug Institute for South
Asia in Bihar, following a recent visit by Bill Gates. "The involvement of
this set of players in the promotion of GM rice is too well known," she says.
AGRA, it is often charged, has been created with little civil society or
farmer engagement. Protests are now breaking out across the continent.
The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, with a membership of 65 civil society and
farmer organisations, tried to block the import of a 40,000 tonne
consignment of GM maize into the country last year.
Food First is concerned that US agencies, acting in tandem with MNCs, are
gaining muscle by the day. The Casey-Lugar Global Food Security Act - a
legislation that seeks to tie foreign aid to GMOs - is often cited. Or, that
the newly appointed head of USAID is a former Gates Foundation
employee.
A set of powerful voices - in business and in philanthropy - are beginning to
talk of a new GM-led green revolution despite the ravages of the previous
green revolution techniques, which were grounded in similar principles, in
India. In the Punjab, Haryana and western UP belt, soils are degraded, and
yields and groundwater levels are plunging, causing deep socio-economic
challenges.
The onslaught continues despite numerous studies indicating that GM crops
are no panacea. A few years ago, the International Assessment of
Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)
- a multi-stakeholder consultation that lasted three years, and involved
900 experts from 110 countries - concluded GM crops are no solution to the
world's food security challenges.
Second Only to the US
Concerns aired by agriculturists are finding an echo in another arena in
which philanthropic capital, in recent years, has catalysed remarkable
progress: healthcare.
It has delivered results in access to medicines, research in neglected and
tropical diseases, development and distribution of vaccines to low-income
countries, maternal, neonatal and child health, and nutrition.
The Gates Foundation and its partners have re-invigorated health issues
and given them a global profile like never before. Since 1994, the
foundation has invested over $13 billion in healthcare alone, representing
60% of its giving to date.
In public health, other than the US government, there is no donor as
influential as the Gates Foundation. It has emerged as the second largest