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News-media reports last week on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $27.6-million investment in the agribusiness giant Monsanto have emboldened food activists critical of the philanthropy’s technology-driven farm programs in Africa, writes The Seattle Times.
The Community Alliance for Global Justice, in Seattle, has kept close tabs on the Gates Foundation’s Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. With the news that the foundation bought 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock earlier this year, Heather Day, the alliance’s director, said her group is teaming up with bigger advocacy outfits to organize “on a national scale” against the Gates involvement with the firm.
The alliance has raised questions about whether the Seattle foundation’s Africa work will be used to create new markets for Monsanto and promote industrial agriculture and genetic engineering of crops.
A Gates foundation spokeswoman said the organization does not discuss specific investments but that it has met with representatives of the alliance and other groups to collect “a broad range of views about agriculture in the developing world.”
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