Farmers and civil society organizations around the world are outraged
by the recent discovery of further connections between the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation and agribusiness titan Monsanto. Last week, a
financial website published the Gates Foundation’s investment portfolio,
including 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock with an estimated worth of
$23.1 million purchased in the second quarter of 2010 (see the filing
with the Securities and Exchange Commission). This marks a substantial
increase from its previous holdings, valued at just over $360,000 (see
the Foundation’s 2008 990 Form).

“The Foundation’s direct investment in Monsanto is problematic on two
primary levels,” said Dr. Phil Bereano, University of Washington
Professor Emeritus and recognized expert on genetic engineering. “First,
Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and
well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling
environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast
serious doubt on the Foundation’s heavy funding of agricultural
development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and
hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an
enormous conflict of interests.”

Monsanto has already negatively impacted agriculture in African
countries. For example, in South Africa in 2009, Monsanto’s genetically
modified maize failed to produce kernels and hundreds of farmers were
devastated. According to Mariam Mayet, environmental attorney and
director of the Africa Centre for Biosafety
in Johannesburg, some farmers suffered up to an 80% crop failure. While
Monsanto compensated the large-scale farmers to whom it directly sold
the faulty product, it gave nothing to the small-scale farmers to whom
it had handed out free sachets of seeds. “When the economic power of
Gates is coupled with the irresponsibility of Monsanto, the outlook for
African smallholders is not very promising,” said Mayet. Monsanto’s
aggressive patenting practices have also monopolized control over seed
in ways that deny farmers control over their own harvest, going so far
as to sue—and bankrupt—farmers for “patent infringement.”

News of the Foundation’s recent Monsanto investment has confirmed the
misgivings of many farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates in
Africa, among them the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition,
who commented, “We have long suspected that the founders of AGRA—the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—had a long and more intimate affair
with Monsanto.” Indeed, according to Travis English, researcher with AGRA Watch,
“The Foundation’s ownership of Monsanto stock is emblematic of a
deeper, more long-standing involvement with the corporation,
particularly in Africa.” In 2008, AGRA Watch, a project of the
Seattle-based organization Community Alliance for Global Justice,
uncovered many linkages between the Foundation’s grantees and Monsanto.
For example, some grantees (in particular about 70% of grantees in
Kenya) of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
(AGRA)—considered by the Foundation to be its “African face”—work
directly with Monsanto on agricultural development projects. Other
prominent links include high-level Foundation staff members who were
once senior officials for Monsanto, such as Rob Horsch, formerly
Monsanto Vice President of International Development Partnerships and
current Senior Program Officer of the Gates Agricultural Development
Program.

Transnational corporations like Monsanto have been key collaborators
with the Foundation and AGRA’s grantees in promoting the spread of
industrial agriculture on the continent. This model of production relies
on expensive inputs such as chemical fertilizers, genetically modified
seeds, and herbicides. Though this package represents enticing market
development opportunities for the private sector, many civil society
organizations contend it will lead to further displacement of farmers
from the land, an actual increase in hunger, and migration to already
swollen cities unable to provide employment opportunities. In the words
of a representative from the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, “AGRA is
poison for our farming systems and livelihoods. Under the philanthropic
banner of greening agriculture, AGRA will eventually eat away what
little is left of sustainable small-scale farming in Africa.”

A 2008 report initiated by the World Bank and the UN, the
International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and
Technology for Development (IAASTD),
promotes alternative solutions to the problems of hunger and poverty
that emphasize their social and economic roots. The IAASTD concluded
that small-scale agroecological farming is more suitable for the third
world than the industrial agricultural model favored by Gates and
Monsanto. In a summary of the key findings of IAASTD, the Pesticide
Action Network North America (PANNA) emphasizes the report’s warning
that “continued reliance on simplistic technological fixes—including
transgenic crops—will not reduce persistent hunger and poverty and could
exacerbate environmental problems and worsen social inequity.”
Furthermore, PANNA explains, “The Assessment’s 21 key findings suggest
that small-scale agroecological farming may offer one of the best means
to feed the hungry while protecting the planet.”

The Gates Foundation has been challenged in the past for its questionable investments; in 2007, the L.A. Times exposed
the Foundation for investing in its own grantees and for its “holdings
in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility
because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard
for worker rights, or unethical practices.” The Times chastised the
Foundation for what it called “blind-eye investing,” with at least 41%
of its assets invested in “companies that countered the foundation’s
charitable goals or socially-concerned philosophy.”

Although the Foundation announced it would reassess its practices, it decided to retain them. As reported
by the L.A. Times, chief executive of the Foundation Patty Stonesifer
defended their investments, stating, “It would be naïve…to think that
changing the foundation’s investment policy could stop the human
suffering blamed on the practices of companies in which it invests
billions of dollars.” This decision is in direct contradiction to the
Foundation’s official “Investment Philosophy”,
which, according to its website, “defined areas in which the endowment
will not invest, such as companies whose profit model is centrally tied
to corporate activity that [Bill and Melinda] find egregious. This is
why the endowment does not invest in tobacco stocks.”

More recently, the Foundation has come under fire in its own
hometown. This week, 250 Seattle residents sent postcards expressing
their concern that the Foundation’s approach to agricultural
development, rather than reducing hunger as pledged, would instead
“increase farmer debt, enrich agribusiness corporations like Monsanto
and Syngenta, degrade the environment, and dispossess small farmers.” In
addition to demanding that the Foundation instead fund “socially and
ecologically appropriate practices determined locally by African farmers
and scientists” and support African food sovereignty, they urged the
Foundation to cut all ties to Monsanto and the biotechnology industry.

AGRA Watch, a program of Seattle-based Community Alliance for
Global Justice, supports African initiatives and programs that foster
farmers’ self-determination and food sovereignty. AGRA Watch also
supports public engagement in fighting genetic engineering and
exploitative agricultural policies, and demands transparency and
accountability on the part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and
AGRA.