---------- Messaggio inoltrato ----------
Subject: ETC Group: Green Revolution 2.0 for Africa?
Date: 22:58, lunedì 16 aprile 2007
From: ETC Group <etcgroup@???>
To: etcgroup@???
ETC Group
News Release
April 16, 2007
www.etcgroup.org
Food Sovereignty or Green Revolution 2.0?
This time the "silver bullet" has a gun
ETC Group today releases a 16-page review <
http://www.etcgroup.org/en/
materials/publications.html?pub_id=611> of five new initiatives
intended to launch what ETC dubs "Green Revolution 2.0" in Africa.
Leading the charge is a plan to construct four Centers of Excellence
together with a second initiative called the Alliance for a Green
Revolution in Africa (AGRA), funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. "The Green Revolution
that followed World War II focused on semi-dwarf, high-yielding plant
varieties" says Pat Mooney, ETC Group's Executive Director. "It was a
one-size-fits-all, take-it-or-leave-it silver bullet," Mooney adds,
"Africa left it." In other words, Green Revolution technologies were
inappropriate for the needs and resources of African farmers. ETC
Group's communique warns that, in Green Revolution 2.0, "big-box"
science is being buttressed by a strategy to restructure African
agriculture. Although the cornerstone of the new revolution will
still be high-tech seeds, the G-8 and private foundations also want
continental changes in market structure, intellectual property laws,
and seed regulation so that agribusiness suppliers can profitably
sell seeds, chemicals, and other inputs to farmers. "Big-box science
will be linked to small box suppliers," Mooney argues, "This time,
the silver bullet has a gun."
While a comprehensive approach to African agriculture seems logical,
ETC Group is concerned that all of the major initiatives are "top-
down" exports from OECD countries. Nobody is talking to farmers or
their organizations. The Canadian government, for example, is
building a $30 million biotech research facility in Nairobi to pursue
genetically modified crops. The request came from an international
research network headquartered in Washington - not from Africans.
Likewise, the Gates/Rockefeller AGRA initiative already has a
detailed plan on how to spend its first $150 million but admits that
it has yet to talk with African farmers' organizations. AGRA is
currently cobbling together an "African" NGO. "AGRA has allocated
$10 million to give to farmers' organizations," says Hope Shand, ETC
Group's Research Director, "but it hasn't talked to them yet."
ETC Group acknowledges that money is needed and that agricultural
science has a role to play. However, the new communique agrees with
the conclusions of a global Food Sovereignty conference held in Mali
in February that identifies the main barrier to food and farmers in
Africa as the WTO and other repressive trade agreements and
multinational agribusiness. "If the G-8, Gates, and Rockefeller
would get rid of some of these barriers - most of them created by
OECD countries - African farmers could do most of the rest," Shand
suggests.
The five initiatives discussed in the communique are the G8's new
Centers of Excellence; the Syngenta Foundation's joint biotech
ventures in Africa; Jeffrey Sachs's Millennium Villages programme;
Google.org's new interests on the continent; and AGRA (the Gates and
Rockefeller commitment). ETC Group's communique describes where the
money is likely to wind up - and who is likely to benefit.
"Only farmer-led agricultural and rural development initiatives that
build upon existing, working systems can lead to real improvement,"
ETC Group's Silvia Riberio insists. "Money and resources - and
appropriate technologies - are needed, but science is not an antidote
to bad policies."
The communique concludes that, "Agriculture and biodiversity are hot
items at the World Bank, FAO and the UN Convention on Biological
Diversity and major meetings on these topics will be held over the
next 14 months. These intergovernmental bodies must recognize that
small farmers, pastoralists and fisherfolk must be the principal
architects and actors in strengthening Africa's food sovereignty."
For further information:
Pat Mooney in Canada
+1 613 241 2267
etc@???
Hope Shand in the USA
+1 919 960 5767
hope@???
Silvia Ribeiro in Mexico
+011 52 5555 6326 64
silvia@???
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