#askU2 -Are @U2 aware your @RED sponsor @gatesfoundation made handing down seeds illegal in Africa (Tanzania)?
"The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN), founded by the G8 in 2012 to ostensibly end hunger and poverty for 50 million people, has forced the Tanzanian government to amend its laws to drastically favor agribusiness and seed companies if it wishes to continue receiving developmental assistance aid. Monsanto, one of the NAFSN’s partners in Tanzania, is set to benefit from these changes to Tanzania’s laws.
The NAFSN is funded by the EU, the U.S., the UK, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The alliance had secured approximately $3.7 billion in private sector investment in signatory countries in Africa as of June 2012, a figure which is said to have since expanded, though no new figures have been released."
Tanzania Forced To Embrace Seed Patents Or Risk Losing Developmental Aid - Mint Press News
This is the exact same removal of funding technique that was employed to implement Gates Foundation's Common Core school curriculum in US states, -except the states of course got the carrot version, i.e., if you adopt this, your funding starved school system will receive this much money, which it won't receive if you don't. The Charter school system becomes an integral funding allocation to help starve the school system.
The matrilineal handing down of seeds being made illegal in Tanzania is laid out as definitely having been due to legislation drafted by AGRA, which the Gates Foundation funded $414 million: "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gives the majority of its $3 billion in food and agricultural grants to rich Western countries, with critics accusing it of using its money to force a pro-GMO agenda on Africa, a recent report suggests.
GRAIN, a small international non-profit, made its accusation after breaking down the foundation’s distribution of grants handed out between 2013 and 2014.
Roughly $1.5 billion ends up in the hands of hundreds of different research, development and policy organizations, 80 percent of which are based in the US and Europe. Only 10 percent of those groups, meanwhile, are in Africa.
Of the $669 million the foundation earmarks to NGOs for agricultural work, GRAIN says over three-quarters has gone to US-based organizations. Africa-based NGOs, by contrast, only receive 4 percent."
"While the NGO says the Gates Foundation does not directly intervene in the affairs of African states, AGRA, which has received $414 million [from Gates Foundation] since its establishment in 2006, is said to focus at least some of its work on 'shaping policy'."
"'AGRA intervenes directly in the formulation and revision of agricultural policies and regulations in Africa on such issues as land and seeds. It does so through national ‘policy action nodes’ of experts, selected by AGRA, that work to advance particular policy changes,' GRAIN writes."
"The organization cites strenuous efforts by The Ghana Food Sovereignty Network to block policy revisions to the country’s national seed policy drafted by AGRA as one example of policy interference carried out by the foundation. Mozambique and Tanzania have also seen AGRA-directed meddling in the country’s seed policy.
The study further notes that one AGRA action plan for Tanzania called on a review of 'laws governing land titling at the district level' and a need to work close with district officials 'to develop guidelines for formulation of by-laws.'
Grain says The Gates Foundation, which states 'listening to farmers and addressing their specific needs' as a guiding principle of its agricultural work, has turned a deaf ear to Africa’s small-scale agricultural workers.
'In practice, the foundation's first guiding principle appears to be a marketing exercise to sell its technologies to farmers,' GRAIN writes. 'In that, it looks, not surprisingly, a lot like Microsoft.'”
Source: "Gates Foundation focuses $3bn agro-fund on rich countries, ‘pushes GMO agenda in Africa’"- RT
Secondary Source: "How Does Gates Foundation Spend its Money to Feed the World?" - GRAIN -The report cited by RT is there in PDF format.
"Tanzanian farmers are facing heavy prison sentences if they continue their traditional seed exchange" - MO
More corroboration on Gates Foundation and AGRA in Africa:
Dangers of the Gates Foundation: Displacing Seeds and Farmers - AGRAWatch
The Gates Foundation and Cargill push Soya onto Africa - African Center for Biodiversity
Grabbing Africa’s seeds: USAID, EU and Gates Foundation back agribusiness seed takeover - African Center for Biodiversity
The Unholy Alliance: Five Western Donors Shape a Pro-Corporate Agenda for African Agriculture -a book. This means four donor nations, -and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Gates Foundation is spearheading the neoliberal plunder of African agriculture - The Ecologist
On Gates Foundation's moves to privatize education in Africa (replicating a campaign to do so in the US):
No education crisis wasted: On Bridge’s “business model” in Africa - Africa is a country
Education in Africa profits billionaire bleeding hearts -Africa is a country
Why is Liberia’s Government rushing to sell its public schools to U.S. for-profits? Africa is a country
"Canadian researcher safely released from Ugandan prison after false allegations made by Bridge International Academies Ltd." - Cision
