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. This marks a substantial increase from its previous holdings, valued at just over $360,000.
“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, in the press release. “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.
Source: AGRA Watch
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “ChrissyOne” for the heads up.]
As I said we can eliminate the 8% unemployment if we just use the vast resources of the Federal government to shift money from private citizens to government programs. We have succeeded. Unemployment is now 17% and most people qualify for my program of mortgage assistance and food stamps. That means increased Federal spending which will further shift the needle on unemployment. The Federal government is hiring – IRS agents and health care auditors and rationers. The benefits and pay are much better in Federal jobs. I would say more, but I and 500 close friends are going on a 2. Week vacation to Tahoe. Check out the magazine rack at the Unemployment Office. Michele ordered Bon Apetit and Architectural Digest. Stay cool.
@doc…if you were an actual scientist you would understand the negative hypothesis. Indeed didn’t I just give you an example?
I have been on MDN for years, I really do not have to prove myself here to people who know me and for whom I have a great of respect both for their wit and their balanced views…just look at dirt farmer and mac warrior. I may not agree with everything they say but I certainly appreciate the thought that goes into their words.
And clearly, by your last response, most everyone here is a great deal more mature (not to mention literate).
Its been fun but alas, there is no way in hell this is going to reach 4 pages. Ta.
@ buster
Perhaps you really went to The University of Germaine?
@buster, mac warrior, and dirt farmer
Hypothesis: A hypothesis (from Greek ὑπόθεσις; plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for an observable phenomenon.
Negative: “not” or “no”, perhaps “non”.
So, you are claiming there is such a thing in scientific practice as an non-proposed explanation that is non-provable, and that this is a common and well understood concept. Please provide evidence for this claim.
@doc…
Ph.D. McGill University (Canada)
PDF UCLA 1985 Molecular Biology Institute (TGIFs were wild and memorable)
And you?
Here is an exampleI pirated off the web for you to understand.
You have a substance. You don’t know what it is. You want to narrow the range of possible substances. A possibility is that it is salt. To prove it is salt might be tricky.
So neg hypothesis is, it is not salt. Salt is soluble in water. So, if this substance isn’t soluble, it isn’t salt.
You add some of the substance to water. It doesn’t dissolve. You therefore eliminate salt. You can then eliminate all the possibles which are soluble. It’s negative because if you were wrong, and the substance WAS soluble, you haven’t proved anything about what it IS.
Only what it isn’t.
Ok…class is out for the day. Bon weekend toute le monde!
In your example, “it is not salt” IS the hypothesis.
Perhaps you should study logic with the frosh class:
http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf
Old argument….and useless in practical terms (but fun for a philosopher).
‘You can prove a negative — at least as much as you can prove anything at all’.
Prove that there are no unicorns?
1. If unicorns had existed, then there is evidence in the fossil record.
2. There is no evidence of unicorns in the fossil record.
3.Therefore, unicorns never existed.
Flawed in practical terms….i.e. have you looked exhaustively for the fossil? That is where this crap falls apart….you can never look hard enough.
What school did you go to again????
@ buster
Your assertions that:
1) You are a scientist
2) GMO foods are safe
3) There is such a concept as a “negative hypothesis”
explains a LOT.
More later.
I’ll try to keep to a few brief comments that aren’t directed at anyone in particular but need to be made.
1) Who cares what credentials anyone has. It is self-evident to me who in this thread has any scientific credentials at all. Hint: Scientists don’t link to web articles or newspapers. No need to demand any personal information from anyone; I certainly won’t be giving any other than country of residence.
2) The comments about hypotheses are completely off-topic. Who cares. In any case, science is not really about “proving” anything to be truth. All you can do is design experiments that lead you to believe one thing or another through quantitative or qualitative observations. It’s a hugely simplified explanation but it is true. And science always changes. But that is the great thing about it — no knowledge is above being succeeded by something new (although much of the basic “collective knowledge” we have is highly unlikely to change at this point). Anyway, all this is entirely beside the point of this thread.
3) http://www.ifzz.pl/fusion_pages/jafs/jaszczak1_etal.pdf
Here is a multigenerational study on the effects of feeding mice GMO wheat vs. conventional wheat. There was no difference found. I took the liberty of finding a freely available, peer-reviewed article for anyone to read. In the future, those that wish to link to articles should at bare minimum use Google Scholar to search for links, if they do not have access to other academic resources. There are many more multigenerational studies done on a wide variety of GMO material — without paying money you may not be able to access anything but the abstract, but you will find them. They are usually done on rats or mice, because these model organisms are known to behave much the same way as humans biochemically. You won’t find any studies on humans — it is (very, very nearly) impossible to get funding for those due to ethical concerns. Multigenerational human studies are impossible for such a new technology.
More in a bit. I’m busy.
–mAc
Additional comments:
4) Re: Erosion of topsoil due to pesticide/herbicide application @ Mr. Reeee.
You’re completely backwards. Without chemical application, farmers must till the land manually to control weeds. This leads to erosion. It is widely understood that chemical application prevents erosion because less manual cultivation is necessary. Less manual cultivation = more nutrients in the soil.
5) The Bt toxin is produced naturally in the environment by bacteria. Why are people not concerned with this “natural” production “contaminating” water supplies, but are concerned when a GM plant produces the EXACT same protein, often in lesser concentrations? Many other organisms produce toxic compounds “naturally”. Yet, nobody seems to be worried about these. Try (not literally!) “natural” bitter almonds, which contain HCN — hydrogen cyanide. Most people in the world lack the education to understand how proteins are created in plants. Thus, they lack the understanding of how a specific genetic modification impacts the organism, and other organisms. These people should not comment on GM plants at all. Here’s a question for anyone: Explain to me in 5 sentences what reverse transcriptase is and how its discovery (and applications!) has contributed to molecular biology and GMOs in the last 20 years. If you can’t answer that basic question, you probably aren’t qualified to have any opinion about GMOs. Sorry, it’s the truth.
6) @ Truth — I never stated that all scientists are objective and non-biased. I said that they are probably more likely to be than the general population, which is true in my experience. You should have more faith in people, and a less cynical view of the world. Of course there is corruption, but we must have scientists of some kind in charge of regulation, NOT bureaucrats or elected officials.
7) Anyway, Buster is right about the future. Sorry to say it, but the ignorant of the world will always be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. We cannot afford to be stationary in knowledge and practice. Stationary organisms are not evolutionarily selected for, I’m sad to say.
–mAc
@ macwarrior
You write “Who cares what credentials anyone has”. I couldn’t agree more.
/////////
If you had bothered to read the thread, you would know that “buster” referred to itself as “a scientist”, wrote “insect resistance plants…that is my area of expertise. I have spent 20 years of my life researching how this insecticidal protein works at the cellular and subcellular levels. I was part of the team that solved its atomic structure.”, stated that “an actual scientist you would understand the negative hypothesis”, among other things.
With the appeals by “buster” to authority, I believe myself to be within the bounds of probity to request credentials, which I did when I requested a vita. What’s the harm in that?
///////////
As to comments about hypothesis, again, if you had bothered to read the thread, you would know that “buster” brought that up in response to my request for one, just one, pretty please with a cherry on top, reference to a “longitudinal, multigenerational study of the effects on humans of the use of food products containing genetic material that has been manipulated in a way that does not occur under natural conditions?”
//////////
In any event, you are right when you write that “science is not really about “proving” anything to be truth.” I don’t recall requesting “truth”, but must agree that “truth” and “science”
have nothing to do with one another. As far as “experiments that lead you to believe one thing or another”, I always thought of experiments that are designed properly (will be falsifiable) lead you to accept, provisionally, either the null hypothesis, the alternative hypothesis, or reject both due to falsification.
///////////
As for science always changing, sure, science changes. A truism if ever there were one? Science isn’t the really important part, it’s the method that counts.
//////////
Thank you for the link to a multigenerational study of mice. I’ve seen it. What I ask for was a “one, just one, pretty please with a cherry on top, reference to a “longitudinal, multigenerational study of the effects on humans of the use of food products containing genetic material that has been manipulated in a way that does not occur under natural conditions?”. The operational concept was “human”. Let me know if you find one. Please. Pretty please? With a cherry on top?
////////
If you really cared what I think, or why I put up the links I did, you would have read what I have already written regarding the subject. If you want to know more, go read what I wrote. It isn’t that hard to find and will only take you a few minutes. I don’t think you care, so…well…there you have it.
//////////
You write:
You won’t find any studies on humans — it is (very, very nearly) impossible to get funding for those due to ethical concerns. Multigenerational human studies are impossible for such a new technology.
Let me get this straight, no studies on humans because of ethical concerns, and anyway it’s all too new, but you maintain it to be OK for the entire population of the planet unto the “nth” generation to serve as a proxy. Is that your argument? That really doesn’t sound very well thought out. Would you like to try again?
A “longitudinal, multigenerational study of the effects on humans of the use of food products containing genetic material that has been manipulated in a way that does not occur under natural conditions” does not exist. I’ve already told you that. It can’t exist; there has not been time.
There are very few studies using humans anywhere in science, aside from advanced pharmaceutical trials. This condition is not really limited to GM products at all. However, anyone with a basic knowledge of how science works understands that studies on model organisms (mice, rats, cattle, etc.) are easily extrapolated to humans. The vast majority of the proteins composing their bodies and ours are exactly the same. We know which are the same, and which are not. It is well understood that these comparisons are completely valid. In these cases, a trial on mice might as well be a trial on humans. Biochemically the results will be the same.
It is easy to refute this system by saying “but that is just guessing!!!!” (and I don’t have the knowledge to argue with you specifically about why model organisms like mice are good systems to predict human effects), but that is the way it is. If you prefer not to use any pharmaceutical products or developments made in biotechnology in the past 50 years (which are all around you and are the result of this system of model organisms), then perhaps you can live in a cave where your life expectancy should promptly drop by at least 50% to pre-1900 levels.
You never answered my question about reverse transcriptase, either.
–mAc
And, I would read your links if they came from a reasonably-reliable, peer-reviewed source. As they stand currently, they are a waste of my time.
–mAc
@macwarrior
There is no way, and I mean no way, in a rational world, you would make a living with that brain of yours given the example of such muddled thinking provided by what you have written in the above post.
I’ll go LIFO:
1) If you had bothered, again, to actually read my post, and only the last post, I never, and I mean never, said “read my links”. What I did say was “If you really cared what I think, or why I put up the links I did, you would have read what I have already written regarding the subject. If you want to know more, go read what I wrote. It isn’t that hard to find and will only take you a few minutes. I don’t think you care, so…well…there you have it.”
2)If I stopped using any “pharmaceutical products or developments made in biotechnology in the past 50 years”, placing the time frame into the mid-20th century, why would my life expectancy drop 50% to “pre-1900 levels” instead of mid 20th century levels?
Furthermore, I believe you give modern advances in “pharmaceutical products or developments made in biotechnology in the past 50 years” too much credit. Heck, If I wanted to clip 25 to 30 years off of my life expectancy, all I needed to do was be born in Calton/Glasgow where some of my ancestors came from. There, I would lack access to such advances and you would have your wish! You see, it isn’t the development, it’s the access that counts.
Interesting thing about that, my ancestors left there over 300 years ago. I have detailed records, and virtually all of them lived as far outside of a city as possible, on a farm, in North America, with access to fresh food, fresh water, windows, believed cleanliness was next to godliness, liked their teeth and took care of them, and virtually all of them lived past 70, with many living into the 80’s and 90’s. There is a lesson to be learned here, and I know what it is. Do you?
3) There must be literally 10’s of millions of scientific studies using humans in thousands (if not 10’s of thousands) of subject areas. There is no way you don’t know this if you really do legitimate work in the field of research concerning food products. No way.
4) As for “A “longitudinal, multigenerational study of the effects on humans of the use of food products containing genetic material that has been manipulated in a way that does not occur under natural conditions” does not exist. I’ve already told you that. It can’t exist; there has not been time.”
I know. I knew that before I asked for if from buster the first time, the second, as well as the third time from you. That is why I asked for one. Without it, there is no way to claim safety, as you, buster, and others here in this thread have been claiming.
The only claim you can make is ignorance of danger. Is that where you really wanna hang your hat? You may wanna die on that hill, but I believe it unlikely the rest of humanity would willingly follow.
I am not asking for proof of complete safety, just simple testing, on a willing population, of foods created and produced which contain genetic material that has been manipulated in a way that does not occur under natural conditions.
Did you know that in the mid 20th century, x-ray machines were common in shoe stores?
http://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/shoexray.htm
Did you know that, at one time, according to all medical and scientific authorities of the time, cocaine was considered completely safe for common use by everyone in the general population, all over Europe and North America, including children. So was opium! In fact, it also used to be common to give children undiluted alcoholic beverages. If you had the money, you could have the booze!!
1) The timeframe in my little quip towards you isn’t what matters. The average lifespan in the U.S. in 1900 was below 50 years (WHO data). I suspect that in Scotland (and the U.S.) 200 years prior to that it was much less than 40. I find it hard to believe that all your ancestors lived into their 70s (some into their 90’s!?) in a time when the majority died well before 50 years of age. The reason for the huge increase in lifespan in the last 100 years (and especially since the 50s) is the dawn of modern medicine, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. People are now expected to live into their 80s, on average, in the U.S. Your quaint anecdotes don’t stand up very well in the face of actual data.
http://www.who.int/global_health_histories/seminars/presentation07.pdf
2) Honestly, if you place so much emphasis on a multigenerational study, there are few products in the world that you can trust today. Everything from cleaning supplies to shampoo to pharmaceuticals to many foods are synthetic or have been treated with “chemicals” and could theoretically have multigenerational effects. Are you going to stop using these products too? Like I said, you might as well live in a cave in Scotland. I guarantee you will not live as long without the technological developments we enjoy today.
I trust the multitude of multigenerational animal trials that have been done already. I also understand the science behind GMOs, and I trust that too. And so do millions of other people. It tends to be the uninformed people who do not support GMOs. It doesn’t matter anyway, I have a feeling that even if such a lengthy study was published tomorrow you would still dispute it.
3) If you are trying to argue that because people did not know what was safe in the past that they don’t know what is safe today, it is not much of an argument. The science has come so far since then. At a time when cocaine was used by the general population, they didn’t have the methods, the protocols, the equipment — nothing on which to base any of their thinking on but simple qualitative observations. It simply is not comparable. Again, if you want to subscribe to this kind of belief, then you might as well not trust anything in modern medicine because it will all be proven wrong in 100 years, right? Or something better will come along. This may well be, but the data we have now suggests that what we know is accurate.
Again, this is an awfully cynical view of the world to have, in my opinion. Never trusting anything. Better turn off your cell phone, WiFi, and television, move into a cave far away from those things, and put on your tinfoil hat. I don’t believe there has been a multigenerational study done on that either.
So you have two choices:
A) Trust the scientists who do the animal studies on a wide variety of technologies (including GMOs), and reap the rewards in lifestyle and life expectancy, OR
B) Don’t trust anything (not many multigenerational studies on modern technologies in humans out there, after all) and live in a cave with a life expectancy of half the rest of us.
It seems pretty black and white to me?
–mAc
PS: You still never answered my question. Or does Google not turn up the answer you need? You seem very good at addressing the non-scientific aspects of posts, but you don’t have many counters for the science. You can attack me all you want, I don’t really care. I don’t need or, frankly, want your acceptance. The science is still there. And you still don’t have any peer-reviewed sources. Maybe you have no access?
@macWarrior
Very good info supplied. Makes a lot of sense, but is a pure waste of time.
Doc is very logical and smart. Here is his logic
1. I hate Monsanto and most American companies, except those that make expensive coffee.
2. I have never produced anything useful and I resent people who do for making me look bad.
3. Poor people in poor countries exist to make me feel good. Companies that help them produce more food and escape poverty are bad, because who can Bono do world concerts for if the poor people become well fed and self sufficient? And don’t let them have DDT to kill mosquitoes carrying malaria. I am part of the NPR telethon that gets them nets (at cost) if they sign the ACORN forms and let us vote for them in the next election.
4. A scientist who works for a company is bad, a scientist who works for a government entity is good, unless he/she says something they shouldn’t.
5. Monsanto is bad because it kills people and destroys jobs. Apple is not responsible for eliminating the jobs of most secretaries and word processing clerks, and also causing Chinese workers/slaves to commit suicide because I like Apple and use their computers.
6. I hate pharmaceutical companies and oil companies and only use pills and drive cars when I have to. Others should not be allowed to tie pills, eat food or use gas powered cars, or use airplane travel because they are not special like me.
That is about it. And if you don’t agree with all the above please provide me peer reviewed, multigenerational, latitudinal and longitudinal studies performed on live humans (Republicans) for at least 100 years by government certified scientists.
People think that Monsanto is all evil but that’s nit true. Just like everyone thinks that Goldman Sachs is evil. But did you know that there are actual people working there? People like you and me? I don’t agree with everything Monsanto does but it’s not an all evil company that propaganda wants you to think.
Small scale farming is not the solution but rather a mix between large and small. Large is not only bad, in allot of ways it’s more effective. But a mix is the best.
@mAc Warrior
Just got back and read your excellent comments. I had to smile about the rev transcriptase question…mainly because my wife, who is a better scientist than me, published with David Baltimore. ….hey maybe doc can find out who DB is.
I was going to mention to doc that transgenic corn and cotton are not consumed by humans and good luck to find that study he demands but he is not worth the time.
The best example is that man has bred wheat and other plants like canola (to remove the bitterness) and that these haven’t generated people with three eyes.
Jax 44 is the one with the guts to identify the real problem.
creating more food so that more starving people can reproduce another generation to produce more starving people is ludicrous. but if GMO is profitable, then there will always be somebody inventing an argument why their plan is the right thing to do.
Fewer people living in sustainable areas in a sustainable lifestyle is the only long-term solution. Anything else just delays the edge of the societal cliff.
Mike is right. The right thing to do is to eliminate at least half the population. I have a list we can start with. Mike – can you come check the pilot light in this oven?
Here is a study of the effects of GMO products on the human population! I had to SEARCH AND SEARCH, but I found out about the effects. If you know of ANY OTHER study of the effects of GMO products on the human population, please let me know.
http://tinyurl.com/SuiDig-com-GMOWhoLLOOc0