Glendive, Montana. La Via Campesina (www.viacampesina.org), a global
peasant movement representing small farmers, landless workers, fisherfolk,
rural women, youth and indigenous peoples, with 150 member organizations
from 70 countries on five continents, has denounced the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation Trust’s recent acquisition of Monsanto Company shares.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was founded in 1994 by Microsoft
founder William H. Gates, and today exerts a hegemonic influence on global
agricultural development policy. The Foundation channels hundreds of
millions of dollars into projects that encourage peasants and farmers to
use Monsanto’s genetically-engineered (GE) seed and agrochemicals. In
August the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which manages the $33.5
billion asset trust endowment that funds the Foundation’s philanthropic
projects (and to which Bill & Melinda are trustees) disclosed that it
purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto shares for just over $23 million.(1)

According to Dena Hoff, a diversified family farmer in Glendive, Montana
and North American coordinator of La Via Campesina, “The Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation Trust’s purchase of Monsanto shares indicates that the
Gates Foundation’s interest in promoting the company’s seed is less about
philanthropy than about profit-making. The Foundation is helping to open
new markets for Monsanto, which is already the largest seed company in the
world.”

Since 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has collaborated with the
Rockefeller Foundation, an ardent promoter of GE crops for the world’s
poor, to implement the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA),
which is opening up the continent to GE seed and chemicals sold by
Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta. The Foundation has given $456 million to
AGRA, and in 2006 hired Robert Horsch, a Monsanto executive for 25 years,
to work on the project. In Kenya about 70 percent of AGRA grantees work
directly with Monsanto (2) , nearly 80 percent of Gates’ funding in the
country involves biotech, and over $100 million in grants has been made to
Kenyan organizations connected to Monsanto. In 2008, some 30 percent of
the Foundation’s agricultural development funds went to promoting or
developing GE seed varieties (3).

In April the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and finance ministers from
the US, Canada, Spain and South Korea pledged $880 million to create the
Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), managed by the World
Bank to “tackle world hunger and poverty.”(4) In June GAFSP announced
that it gave $35 million to Haiti to increase smallholder farmers’ access
to “agricultural inputs, technology, and supply chains.”(5) In May
Monsanto announced that it donated 475 tons of seed to Haiti, which is
being distributed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The administrator of USAID is Rajiv Shah, who worked at the Gates
Foundation before being appointed by the Obama administration in 2009.

According to Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Haitian Peasant Movement of
Papaye and Caribbean coordinator of La Via Campesina, “It is really
shocking for the peasant organizations and social movements in Haiti to
learn about the decision of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to buy
Monsanto shares while it is giving money for agricultural projects in
Haiti that promote the company’s seed and agrochemicals. The peasant
organizations in Haiti want to denounce this policy which is against the
interests of 80 percent of the Haitian population, and is against peasant
agriculture—the base of Haiti’s food production. ”

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also funds the US government’s Feed
the Future initiative, administered by the State Department. At a July 20
congressional subcommittee hearing on Feed the Future, executive vice
president for Monsanto Gerald Steiner testified that “Feed the Future is
exciting not least because it recognizes both the business imperatives by
which Monsanto and other companies must operate… We want to do good in the
world, while we also do well for our shareholders.” Steiner mentioned
Monsanto’s project to develop drought resistant maize for Africa, also
funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.(6)

According to Hoff, “Foundations, however well meaning, should not be
setting food and agricultural policies for any nation of peoples.
Democracy demands the informed participation of civil society to determine
what is in the best interest of each nation’s population. ‘Doing well for
our shareholders’ seems an ulterior motive for meddling in the health and
welfare of the planet and all its inhabitants in order to make a profit.”

Perhaps not by coincidence, in July Monsanto’s chief executive officer and
president Hugh Grant purchased $2 million of company shares, and vice
president and chief financial officer Carl M. Casale bought $1.6 million
of shares. “Grant and Casale have pocketed nice sums from selling Monsanto
shares over the years.”(7) Purchase of Monsanto shares by Gates, Grant
and Casale could have been in anticipation of last week’s news that
researchers published the genome for wheat, the staple grain for one-third
of the world’s population. “For Monsanto, a quality wheat genome map could
potentially help in our efforts to bring better wheat varieties to
farmers," said Monsanto. (8) In 2008, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
awarded $26.8 million to Cornell University to research wheat, and in May
awarded $1.6 million to researchers at Washington State University to
develop drought-resistant GE wheat varieties.(9)

The Gates Foundation continues to push Monsanto’s products on the poor,
despite mounting evidence of the ecological, economic and physical dangers
of producing and consuming GE crops and agrochemicals. In June the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled on Monsanto Co. vs. Geertson Seed Farms, its first
case about a GE crop. The Court recognized that genetic contamination of
non-GE crops from transgene flow of DNA from GE crops, which occurs
through the spread of pollen by wind and bees, is harmful and onerous to
the environment and farmers. According to the web site of the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, “AGRA and its partners have released more than
100 new varieties of improved seed across the [African] continent.”(10)

La Via Campesina maintains that the best way to ensure healthy food, adapt
to climate change, conserve soils, water and forests, and revitalize rural
economies is with policies that promote food sovereignty and small-scale,
agroecological farming systems—the foundation of which is native seed
varieties. The United Nations estimates that 75 percent of the world’s
plant genetic diversity has been lost as farmers have abandoned native
seed for genetically-uniform varieties offered by corporations such as
Monsanto. Genetic homogeneity increases farmers’ vulnerability to sudden
changes in climate and the appearance of new pests and diseases, while
seed agrobiodiversity—with native seed adapted to different microclimates,
altitudes and soils—is fundamental for adapting to climate change. Saving
and replanting native seed increases agrobiodiversity and strengthens
crops’ genetic plasticity (their capacity to adapt rapidly over
generations to changing growing conditions).

According to Henry Saragih, general coordinator of La Via Campesina in
Jakarta, "La Via Campesina condemns this missappropriation of humanitarian
aid for commercial ends and the privatization of food policies"

* For more information or media requests, contact viacampesina viacampesina.org

Notes

(1)http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166559/000104746910007567/a2199827z13f-hr.txt

(2) Community Alliance for Global Justice. “Gates Foundation invests in
Monsanto.” Press release August 25 2010.
http://www.seattleglobaljustice.org/2010/08/for-immediate-release-gates-foundation-invests-in-monsanto/

(3) Holt-Giménez, Eric. “Monsanto in Gates’ clothing? The emporor’s new
GMOs.” Huffington Post. August 26 2010.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-holt-gimenez/monsanto-in-gates-clothin_b_696182.html

(4) Kellerhals Jr., Merle David. “Finance ministers announce $880 million
for Global Food Security.” April 22 2010.
http://www.america.gov/st/develop-english/2010/April/20100422155518dmslahrellek0.9501917.html

(5) Feed the Future. “An Improved Approach to Agriculture and Food
Security: Haiti” June 25 2010.

(6) Monsanto Company. “Jerry Steiner speaks to congress about the Feed the
Future Initiative.” July 20 2010.
http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/steiner_feed_the_future_initiative_072010

(7) Gottfried, Miriam. “Top Monsanto execs load up on shares.” Barron’s.
July 15 2010.

(8) Gillam, Carey. “Wheat groups welcome genetic news; say more needed.”
Reuters. August 27 2010.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN277047520100827

(9) Weaver, Matthew. “Gates awards $1.6 million for dwarf wheat research.”
Checkbiotech.org. July 25 2010.
http://greenbio.checkbiotech.org/news/gates_awards_16m_dwarf_wheat_research
(10)
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/press-releases/Pages/global-trust-fund-for-poor-farmers-100422.aspx