Thursday, October 17, 2013

Raila Odinga tells US Government Officials he has put March 4 elections behind him



My Dear Good People,


I am a very concerned person and I want to share this observation with all of you so anyone may advice appropriately as it deems fit:


1) Respect, dignity, value and honor is earned over long passage of time and falling from Grace to disgrace takes no time and your respect is thrown to the dogs.


2) A person with a vision does not do things blindly, except he or she uses wisdom and consult widely before they engage in doing things of great maltitude that concerns many lives


3) If you are blessed with a brother in a foreign land, you are a blessed person and you do not go behind their back to dig a hole in their backyard to cause them harm, pain or backstab them or even cause them disharmony in the company of an enemy, because a brother is a gift from God.


4) A wise person does not go after rejects in exchange for their valuables, but bargain over things that add credit and value in exchange; just like the pillar that the builder abandoned or deserted is of no value or use to anyone ............. because a house built on strong foundation, shall not be shaken even if the wind and storm pound on it.....................


Therefore, a good manager strives to upholds the esteem and goodwill name of a Company; likewise, a good leader must be responsible to deliver services with integrity according to the trust of those he or she is of service..........and timing to engage in favorable business return is of essence.


With the above theories, I am saddened that former PM of Kenya, Raila Odinga seem to be making desperate and dangerous moves of embarrassment coupled with high expectation of missed opportunities.


To embark on a journey to the US in company of some County Governors at the time of US Government Shut-down is lacking credibility and logistics for intelligence and was of no significance value.
 

Why do I say this:

a) Washington DC is the heart of the Government where all Government facilities operate..........with the Government shut-down, Government facilities and utilities were all shut down. A lot of programs and appointments were all cancelled. Government workers were out of work. The assumed Emerging Markets forum or conference must have been cancelled and so a back-door skeleton of service may have been offered to Raila and Team. This begs the question therefore, did the Government Officials invite him to discuss the March 4th elections???


The business that brought him to the USA therefore was definately not credible............but it was confirming missed opportunity for unfinished business which is not constitutional or legal in any way.........


b) The Emerging Markets of GM, the Genetically Modified Foods to feed the world is a reject in the whole world with just a few days world demonstration against it and the business organizations of the GM are stranded with their reject goods and are looking for a dumping station, the reason why they are scrambling for Africas Grabbed land. It is only danderhead fools who will want to subject their people to loose huge land to accommodate rejects of GM foods. During a Government shutdown, any business deal with the Government is unconstitutional and is illegal.............So how are these Governors going to explain or account to their constituents after spending taxpayer money in wasteful trip.


c) Because GM is a reject, negotiators can only engage deals in dark corners, during a Government Shutdown. Does this explain the type of Emerging Market former PM Raila came to engage? Who want to engage in failed business at the expense of taxpayer??? What are the gains for the people who are about to loose their land under such questionable circumstances???


d) What about the timing of the selling of his book.......Did Raila think twice that his business partners or advisors had actually taken him for a fool?


e) GM is environmentally and healthwise unfit and has failed the test of feed the world.............its business community have a host of problem and rethinking to do..............Africa must not be made a dampting station under the guist of Free Business...............and Raila with team must stop fooling Africans...............it is time for Africans to stand up for their rights..................


Raila must stop treating President Obama as his enemy. He should stop his negative sneering and sneaky attacks on Obama and begin to act normal. It is important that former PM Raila slow down, that, he is just doing himself more harm than good........that something about his politics with business engagement of unfinished business is not going down well in the right way. When Rift Valley and Nubians begin to run away from him, something has seriously gone wrong.

Raila must get some reality……..he must know that although he is agreed to be used negatively by his business associates and partners here in the USA to stab our good President Obama negatively, at the end of the day, he is the looser and will remain a laughing stock……….He should know better and do something about his failed attitudes with hopeless negativity on Obama……….Let him take a deep breath retire from politics peacefully with dignity before the tides are high and he finds himself sinking with the waves………………




Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson &
Executive Director for
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa
USA
 

 

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Raila Odinga tells US government officials he has put March 4 elections behind him
Updated Wednesday, October 16th 2013 at 08:36 GMT +3
By GEOFFREY MOSOKU
WASHINGTON DC: CORD leader Raila Odinga on Tuesday held talks with a number of US government officials in Washington, DC.
Raila held separate talks with Assistant Secretary of State for Africa ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield at the US State Department in Washington, DC, chairman of the Senate sub-committee on Africa and member of the Senate Foreign Affairs CommitteeSenator Chris Coons of Delaware and Special Representative forUS Global Food Security Mr Jonathan Shrier.

Discussions between Raila, Thomas-Greenfield and Senator Coons focused on progress in Kenya since elections, implementation of Devolution provisions of the constitution, regional security and strengthening of principles of democracy, the rule of law and reforming and strengthening Kenya's key institutions including police and judiciary.
The Cord leader said he has put the election behind and is focusing on ensuring a faithful implementation of provisions of the new constitution.
“We are also keen to work with you in deepening institutional reforms in Kenya especially reform of the police, judiciary and other institutions of governance and we look up to this administration to walk with Kenyans in their dream to strengthen and institutionalize democracy, the rule of law, government accountability and national security,” he said.
At meetings with the assistant Secretary and Senator Coons Raila called on the US to support the implementation of devolution because it holds promise for Kenya's future stability through inclusive growth, equitable sharing of resources and state accountability.
He also asked the US to support Kenya's governors through training, capacity building and actual investments in various counties.
“We need the administration’s support for our governors through training, capacity building, funding and, most importantly, by directing investors to our counties.”

The Assistant Secretary pledged continued support for Kenya on security, especially in war against terrorism.

She pledged support in hunting down those behind the attack at the Westgate Mall no matter how long the search lasts.

The Westgate Mall attack underscored vulnerabilities in the Horn of Africa and demonstrated that al Shabaab has a capable network in East Africa and is willing to carry out attacks outside Somalia, she said.
Raila reiterated that when it comes to matters of National Security, there will be no opposition and government and Kenyans will stand together as one people.
The former PM appealed to the administrators of the Feed the Future program in Kenya to allow governors to have an input on the agricultural initiatives being undertaken in their counties.
He appealed for stronger support for counties in arid areas, singling out Marsabit, Wajir, Garissa and Tana River.
Raila appreciated the focus the Feed the Future program has put on Kenya, but appealed for assistance to farmers in areas of training, provision of quality, drought resistant seeds and storage facilities.
Feed the Future is a U.S. Government hunger and food security initiative, supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sector to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty and undernutrition.
Raila later launched his autobiography at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.
 
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Thursday, October 10, 2013

Raila Odinga, CORD governors head to US





Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga. PHOTO/FILE



Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga. PHOTO/FILE

 

In Summary



  • The Cord Delegations will be in the US for two weeks
  • The former PM and his delegation will also attend the Emerging Markets Forum in Washington
  • Mr Odinga will promote his newly launched autobiography Flame of Freedom

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga will on Friday lead Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD governors on a second tour to the United States.




Mr Odinga and the Cord delegation will be in the US for two weeks. Mr Odinga is expected to popularise his recently launched autobiography, Flame of Freedom during the tour.



The former PM and his delegation will meet business executives and also attend the Emerging Markets Forum in Washington.





“Mr Odinga will also use his two- week stay in the US to promote his newly launched autobiography Flame of Freedom in Washington, DC and Minnesota, among other US cities,” a statement released by his spokesperson Mr Dennis Onyango stated.



Mr Odinga will be accompanied by governors Ali Hassan Joho (Mombasa), Wycliffe Oparanya (Kakamega), Nathif Jama (Garissa), Ahmed Abdullahi (Wajir), Ukur Yatani (Marsabit) and Josephat Nanok of Turkana.



While in Washington, Mr Odinga and his delegation will also meet opinion leaders and officialsfrom both government and non-governmental agencies before travelling to Minnesota for meetings with business leaders and to launch the biography.



In July 2013, the former PM led Cord governors on a tour to the US (READ: Governors’ US trip not political: Raila).


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Biography

Photo of Linda Thomas-Greenfield
Linda Thomas-Greenfield
Assistant Secretary
Bureau of African Affairs
Term of Appointment: 08/06/2013 to present

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a member of the Career Foreign Service, was confirmed by the Senate on August 1, 2013 and sworn in on August 6, 2013 as the next Assistant Secretary for African Affairs.
Prior to assuming her current position, as Director General she led a team of about 400 employees who carried out the full range of personnel functions for the State Department’s 60,000-strong workforce - from recruitment and hiring, through evaluations and promotions, to retirement.
Since beginning her Foreign Service career in 1982 as a consular officer in Kingston, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield has risen through the ranks to the Minister Counselor level. Overseas she has served in Jamaica, Nigeria, The Gambia, Kenya, Pakistan, Switzerland (at the U.S. Mission to the UN), and most recently as Ambassador to the Republic of Liberia, where she served from 2008 to 2012. In Washington she has worked in the Bureau of Human Resources, as well as the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, where she was a Deputy Assistant Secretary from 2004 to 2006, and the Bureau of African Affairs, where she was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary from 2006 to 2008.
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield was the 2000 recipient of the Warren Christopher Award for Outstanding Achievement in Global Affairs in recognition of her work with refugees. She has received several Superior, Meritorious, and Performance awards, including the Presidential Meritorious Service Award. She was a 2010 inductee into the Louisiana State University Alumni Association Hall of Distinction.
Prior to joining the Department of State, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield taught political science at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. She earned a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University and a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, where she also did work towards a doctorate.
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a member of the Career Foreign Service, was confirmed by the Senate on August 1, 2013 and sworn in on August 6, 2013 as the next Assistant Secretary for African Affairs.
Prior to assuming her current position, as Director General she led a team of about 400 employees who carried out the full range of personnel functions for the State Department’s 60,000-strong workforce - from recruitment and hiring, through evaluations and promotions, to retirement.
Since beginning her Foreign Service career in 1982 as a consular officer in Kingston, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield has risen through the ranks to the Minister Counselor level. Overseas she has served in Jamaica, Nigeria, The Gambia, Kenya, Pakistan, Switzerland (at the U.S. Mission to the UN), and most recently as Ambassador to the Republic of Liberia, where she served from 2008 to 2012. In Washington she has worked in the Bureau of Human Resources, as well as the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, where she was a Deputy Assistant Secretary from 2004 to 2006, and the Bureau of African Affairs, where she was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary from 2006 to 2008.
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield was the 2000 recipient of the Warren Christopher Award for Outstanding Achievement in Global Affairs in recognition of her work with refugees. She has received several Superior, Meritorious, and Performance awards, including the Presidential Meritorious Service Award. She was a 2010 inductee into the Louisiana State University Alumni Association Hall of Distinction.
Prior to joining the Department of State, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield taught political science at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. She earned a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University and a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, where she also did work towards a doctorate.
 
US-India partnership to improve agricultural productivity in AC
Hyderabad | Wednesday, Jan 16 2013 IST
 
U S Department of State Special Representative for Global Food Security, Jonathan Shrier (Acting) today said US-India partneship will improve agricultural productivity in African Countries (AC). Participating in the first agricultural training programme of the India-US- Africa Trainangular partneship here, Mr Shrier and Mr Sanjeev Gupta, Joint Secretary (Information Technology and Extension), Ministry of Agriculture, said "as part of the broader US-India Agriculture Dialogue, our triangular engagement will share proven innovations from India's private and public sector to address food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty in the target African Countries." The United States Government is funding this training program through Feed the Future, the US government's global hunger and food security initiative.
The triangular partnership will improve agricultural productivity, strengthen agricultural value chains, and support market institutions in Kenya, Liberia, and Malawi.
Led by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Indian National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), this three-year training program will build the capacity of 180 agriculture professionals from the three African countries by providing extension management, agricultural marketing and agri-business training at MANAGE in Hyderabad and at the Chaudhary Charan Singh National Institute of Agricultural Marketing in Jaipur. UNI VV AKM ADB19281924 NNNN
-- (UNI) -- 16ms71.xml
 

Shrier, Jonathan

Jonathan Shrier
Acting Special Representative
Global Food Security
Term of Appointment: 08/29/2011 to present
On August 29, 2011, Mr. Shrier became Acting Special Representative for Global Food Security and as such, is responsible for coordinating all aspects of U.S. diplomacy related to food security and nutrition, including in support of Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative. The Special Representative is part of the interagency leadership of the government-wide Presidential Initiative, serving concurrently as Deputy Coordinator for Diplomacy for Feed the Future.
Mr. Shrier leads diplomatic efforts to advance the U.S. global hunger and food security initiative, with a particular focus on major donor and strategic partner countries as well as multilateral institutions such as the G8 and G20. Mr. Shrier came to the State Department’s Office of the Global Food Security from the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff.
He has served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he helped to design and establish the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas launched by President Obama. While at the National Security Council and National Economic Council, Mr. Shrier coordinated interagency policy at the intersection of energy, climate, and agriculture, including responses to the spike in commodity prices in 2007-2008. A career Foreign Service Officer, Mr. Shrier handled international trade and investment issues for then Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs Josette Sheeran, just prior to her appointment as head of the World Food Program.
During his service at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Mr. Shrier worked with USAID to establish a development assistance program for Tibetan communities in China, with a focus on agriculture-led development. Mr. Shrier has earned degrees from the National Defense University (M.S. in National Security Resource Strategy), University of London (M.B.A. in International Management), London School of Economics (MSc in International Relations), and Dartmouth (A.B. in Government). His languages include Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, French, and Spanish.
[This is a mobile copy of Shrier, Jonathan]
 
======================
 
Jonathan Shrier
Published on Jun 17, 2013
Jonathan Shrier, Acting Special Representative for Global Food Security at the U.S. Department of State, talks about the need to think about food systems and total nutrition, not just farming.
 
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U.S.-India Partnership to Improve Agricultural Productivity in African Countries

For Immediate Release

Wednesday, January 16, 2013
HYDERABAD - Today, U.S. Department of State Special Representative for Global Food Security, Jonathan Shrier (Acting), and Joint Secretary (Information Technology and Extension) Indian Ministry of Agriculture Mr. Sanjeev Gupta, visited the first agricultural training program of the India-U.S.-Africa triangular partnership. The United States Government is funding this training program through Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative. This triangular partnership aims to improve agricultural productivity, strengthen agricultural value chains, and support market institutions in Kenya, Liberia, and Malawi.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Shrier explained that, as part of the broader U.S.-India Agriculture Dialogue, our triangular engagement “will share proven innovations from India’s private and public sector to address food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty in the target African countries.”
Led by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Indian National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), this three-year training program will build the capacity of 180 agriculture professionals from the three African countries by providing extension management, agricultural marketing and agri-business training at MANAGE in Hyderabad and at the Chaudhary Charan Singh National Institute of Agricultural Marketing in Jaipur.
To learn more about Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative visit: www.feedthefuture.gov.
 
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Special Representative for Global Food Security Jonathan Shrier (Acting) participates in Hunger, Nutrition and Climate Justice Conference in Dublin

Media Note




Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC
April 16, 2013
On April 15 and16, Special Representative for Global Food Security Jonathan Shrier (Acting) participated in the “Hunger, Nutrition and Climate Justice” Conference, held at Dublin Castle and hosted by the Government of Ireland and the Mary Robinson Foundation.
The event brought together key policy makers and global leaders, civil society representatives, and people who face food insecurity and undernutrition to facilitate a dialogue with the goal of informing potential approaches to address the nexus of hunger, nutrition and climate change in the post-2015 Development Agenda.
President of Ireland H.E. Mr. Michael D. Higgins formally opened the conference, and speakers included former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and former Vice-President of the United States Al Gore. Special Representative Shrier (Acting) participated on the panel “From Learning to Leading – Informing the post-2015 Development Agenda,” where panelists offered different points of view on how the exchanges from the conference could be connected to the post-2015 agenda.
The U.S government works with partners to build the resilience of communities vulnerable to climate change, by helping partner countries develop strategies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, transition to low-carbon futures and better cope with climate impacts. Feed the Future, the U.S. Government hunger and food security initiative, supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sector to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty and undernutrition. These investments contribute to the health, stability, and resilience of developing countries, and support responsible management of natural resources in the face of a growing population and changing climate.
To learn more, please visit here.
PRN: 2013/0419
 

U.S. looks to Monsanto to feed the world
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman
PAN North America
2 Feb 2011
http://www.panna.org/blog/us-looks-monsanto-feed-world

At the annual World Economic Forum this past weekend in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Director Rajiv Shah stood beside CEOs from Monsanto and other infamous giant corporations, and announced U.S. support for a "New Vision for Agriculture."

Yes, you should be worried.

Claiming that "large-scale private sector partnerships [can] achieve significant impact on global hunger and nutrition," Shah introduced the initiative's 17 agribusiness "champions": Archer Daniels Midland, BASF, Bunge Limited, Cargill, Coca-Cola, DuPont, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Metro AG, Monsanto Company, Nestle, PepsiCo, SABMiller, Syngenta, Unilever, Wal-Mart, and Yara International.

What!?! Are you kidding me? Most of these agribusiness giants could be listed in an edition of Who's Who in Environmental Destruction, Hunger and Human Rights Violations. A few minutes' of investigation on GRAIN, CorpWatch, Food & Water Watch or PAN's chemical cartel page will prove this point.

Feeding the corporations

The plan, USAID tells us, is for the U.S. to leverage private sector investments for agricultural "growth," using our taxpayer dollars through Obama's Feed the Future initiative. Back in September, I wrote about the corporate Trojan Horse lurking within Feed the Future. There's always been some green window dressing scattered throughout the plan, claiming that the initiative will follow Southern country priorities, support gender equity, respect local and Indigenous knowledge, etc.

Back then, Rajiv Shah & Co. were making only thinly veiled references to the Initiative's plan to "discover" and "deliver breakthrough technologies" (guess whose) to poor hapless farmers in the global South.

Now, however, USAID has abandoned all pretenses of respecting a people's agenda, and baldly acknowledges that large-scale private sector partnerships with some of the world's worst corporate actors lies at the core of Feed the Future. We are given the example of Feed the Future's project in Tanzania, where an "investment blueprint" to establish "profitable, modern commercial farming and agribusiness" and designed to last for "years to come" has been set up with Monsanto, Syngenta, Yara and General Mills, among other multinational corporations. USAID "hopes to expand the blueprint in the future to at least five additional African countries."
 

India, US team up for agri extension training in Africa

K. V. Kurmanath
How Monsanto Is Terrifying the Farming World
Illustration by Peter Ryan / peterthomasryan.com
Percy Schmeiser was a farmer. Shortly after the Monsanto company introduced genetically modified (GM) canola plants to Canada, Percy Schmeiser was a farmer facing a lawsuit.
After hearing that GM crops could potentially increase yields, three farmers in Schmeiser's region planted fields of Monsanto's seed. Winds pushed pollen from GM canola into Schmeiser's fields, and the plants cross-pollinated. The breed he had been cultivating for 50 years was now contaminated by Monsanto's GM canola.
Did Monsanto apologize? No. It sued Schmeiser for patent infringement — first charging the farmer per acre of contamination, then slapping him with another suit for $1 million and attempting to seize his land and farming equipment. After a seven-year battle, the Canadian Supreme Court eventually ruled against him but let him keep his farm and his $1 million. He was one of the lucky ones.
In May, more than 1,300 Miami protesters joined the global march against Monsanto.
Sara Ventiera
In May, more than 1,300 Miami protesters joined the global march against Monsanto.
Schmeiser's case illustrates how Monsanto is dominating — and terrifying — the agricultural world with secretive technologies, strong-arm tactics, and government approval. According to the Center for Food Safety, Monsanto has filed at least 142 similar lawsuits against farmers for alleged infringement of its patents or abuse of its technology agreement. The company has won 72 judgments totaling almost $24 million.
Agriculture is a big industry in Florida. About $130 billion-per-year big, the second-largest industry behind tourism. Statewide, 9 million acres of farmland are divided into more than 47,500 commercial farms. In fact, Palm Beach County is the largest agricultural county east of the Mississippi River.
According to the USDA, 95,000 acres of corn, 125,000 acres of upland cotton, and 25,000 acres of soybeans have been planted in the state in 2013. With Food and Water Watch warning that nationally, 90 to 93 percent of such crops are genetically modified, Floridians have cause to know what's lurking up the food chain.
A Biotech Revolution
When you're good at something, you want to leverage that. Monsanto's specialty is killing stuff.
In the early years, the St. Louis biotech giant helped pioneer such leading chemicals as DDT, PCBs, and Agent Orange. Unfortunately, these breakthroughs had a tendency to harm humans too.
When lawsuits piled up, putting a crimp in long-term profitability, Monsanto hatched a less lethal, more lucrative plan. It would attempt to take control of the world's food supply.
This mission started in the mid-'90s, when the company began developing genetically modified crops like soybeans, corn, alfalfa, sugar beets, and wheat (much of it used for livestock feed). Monsanto bred crops that were immune to its leading weed killer, Roundup. That meant farmers no longer had to till the land to kill weeds, as they'd done for hundreds of years. They could simply blast their fields with chemicals. The weeds would die while the crops grew unaffected. Problem solved.
Monsanto put a wonderful spin on this development: The so-called "No-Till Revolution" promised greater yields, better profits for the family farm, and a heightened ability to feed a growing world.
But there was a dark side. First, farmers grew dependent on Monsanto, having to buy new seed every year, along with Monsanto's pesticides. The effects on human health were largely unknown — would it harm people to consume foods whose genetic profile had suddenly changed after millions of years? Or to eat the animals that had consumed those plants? What about ripple effects on ecosystems?
But agriculture had placed the belligerent strongman in charge of the buffet line.
Monsanto squeezed out competitors by buying the biggest seed companies, spending $12 billion on the splurge. The company bought up the best shelf space and distribution channels. Its braying of global benevolence began to look much more like a naked power grab.
Seed prices began to soar. Since 1996, the cost of soybeans has increased 325 percent. Corn has risen 259 percent. And the price of genetically modified cotton has jumped a stunning 516 percent.
Instead of feeding the world, Monsanto drove prices through the roof — taking the biggest share for itself. A study by Dr. Charles Benbrook at Washington State University found that rapidly increasing seed and pesticide costs were tamping farmers' income, cutting them from any benefits of the new technology.
Still, Monsanto was doing its best to make them play along. It offered steep discounts to independent dealers willing to restrict themselves to selling mostly Monsanto products. These same contracts brought severe punishment if independents ever sold out to a rival. U.S. regulators showed little concern for Monsanto's expanding power.
"They're a pesticide company that's bought up seed firms," says Bill Freese, a scientist at the Center for Food Safety. "Businesswise, it's a beautiful, really smart strategy. It's just awful for agriculture and the environment."
Today, Monsanto seeds cover 40 percent of America's crop acres — and 27 percent worldwide. The company makes nearly $8 billion per year.
"If you put control over plant and genetic resources into the hands of the private sector... and anybody thinks that plant breeding is still going to be used to solve society's real problems and to advance food security, I have a bridge to sell them," says Benbrook.
Seeds of Destruction
It didn't used to be like this. At one time, seed companies were just large-scale farmers who grew various strains for next year's crop. Most of the innovative hybrids and cross-breeding was done the old-fashioned way at public universities. The results were shared publicly.
"It was done in a completely open-sourced way," says Benbrook. "Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture exchanged all sort of seeds with other scientists and researchers all over the world. This free trade and exchange of plant genetic resources was the foundation of progress in plant breeding. And in less than a decade, it was over."
The first crack appeared in 1970, when Congress empowered the USDA to grant exclusive marketing rights to novel strains — with the exception that farmers could replant the seeds if they chose and patented varieties must be provided to researchers.
But that wasn't enough. Corporations wanted more control, and they got it with a dramatic, landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1980 that allowed the patenting of living organisms. The decision was intended to increase research and innovation. But it did the opposite, encouraging market concentration.
Monsanto, which declined an interview request for this article, would soon gobble up every rival seed company in sight. It patented the best seeds for genetic engineering, leaving only the inferior for sale as non-GM brands.
Syngenta and DuPont both sued, accusing Monsanto of monopolistic practices and a "scorched earth campaign." But instead of bringing reform, the chemical giants reached settlements that granted them licenses to use, sell, and cross-develop Monsanto products. (Some DuPont suits still drag on today.)
It wasn't until 2009 that the Justice Department, working in concert with several state attorneys general, began investigating the company for antitrust violations. But three years later, the feds quietly dropped the case. (They also ignored interview requests for this article.)
Dr. Peter Carstensen, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said some states were interested in pursuing the case and "some of the staff in the antitrust division wanted to do something, but top management — you say the word 'patent' and they panic."
Set the Lawyers to Stun
Historically, farmers were able to save money on seeds by using those produced by last year's crops for the coming year's planting. But because Monsanto owns patents on its genetically modified strains, it forces farmers to buy new seeds every year.
Armed with lawyers and private investigators, the company has embarked on a campaign of spying and intimidation to stop any farmer from replanting his seeds.
Farmers call them the "seed police," using words such as "Gestapo" and "Mafia" to describe Monsanto's tactics. The company's agents fan out into small towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants. Some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records.
In one case, Monsanto accused Indiana farmer David Runyon of using its soybean seeds, despite documented fact that he'd bought nonpatented seed from local universities for years. While attempting to pressure Runyon, Monsanto's lawyer claimed the company had an agreement with the Indiana Department of Agriculture to search his land.
One problem: Indiana didn't have a Department of Agriculture at the time. Like most Monsanto investigations, the case never went to trial and would appear to be more about intimidation than anything. Runyon incurred substantial costs defending himself without having done anything wrong. In 2006, the Center for Food Safety estimated that Monsanto had pressured as many as 4,500 farmers into paying settlements worth as much as $160 million.
Yet Monsanto wanted even more leverage. So it naturally turned to Congress.
Earlier this year, a little-noticed provision was slipped into a budget resolution. The measure, pushed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Missouri), granted the company an unheard-of get-out-of-jail-free card, which critics derisively dubbed "The Monsanto Protection Act."
There have been some indications of adverse health effects, but Monsanto has largely kept its products from researchers. Long-term studies have been limited, but scientists have found greater prevalence of tumors and digestive problems in rats fed GM corn and potatoes, and digestive issues for livestock eating GM feed. Those who have published studies critical of GM have been besieged by industry-funded critics disputing their finding, assailing their professional reputations, and effectively muddying the water. The feds have never bothered to extensively study GM foods. Instead, they've basically taken Monsanto's word that all is kosher. So organic farmers and their allies sued the company in 2009, claiming too little study had been done on Monsanto's GM sugar beets.
A year later, a judge agreed, ordering all recently planted GM sugar beet crops destroyed until their environmental impact was studied.
The Monsanto Protection Act was designed to end such rulings. It essentially bars judges from intervening in the midst of lawsuits — a notion that would seem highly unconstitutional.
Not that Congress noticed. Monsanto's spent more than $10 million on campaign contributions during the past decade — plus another $70 million on lobbying since 1998. The money speaks so loudly, Congress has become tone-deaf.
In fact, the U.S. government has become Monsanto's de facto lobbyist in countries distrustful of GM safety. Two years ago, WikiLeaks released diplomatic cables showing how the feds had lobbied foreign governments to weaken laws and encourage the planting of genetically modified crops in Third World countries.
Other wires from State Department diplomats ask for money to fly in corporate flacks to lean on government officials. Even Mr. Environment, former Vice President Al Gore, was key in getting France to briefly approve Monsanto's GM corn.
These days, the company has infiltrated the highest levels of government. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a former Monsanto lawyer, and the company's former and current employees are in high-level posts at the USDA and FDA.
But the real coup came in 2010, when President Obama appointed former Monsanto Vice President Michael Taylor as the FDA's new deputy commissioner for foods. It was akin to making George Zimmerman the czar of gun safety.
Trust Us. Why Would We Lie?
At the same time Monsanto was cornering the food supply, its principal products — GM crops — were receiving less scrutiny than an NSA contractor.
Monsanto understood early on the best way to stave off bad publicity was to suppress independent research. Until recently, when negotiating an agreement with major universities, the company had severely restricted access to its seeds by requiring researchers to apply for a license and get approval from the company about any proposed research. The documentary Scientists Under Attack: Genetic Engineering in the Magnetic Field of Money noted that nearly 95 percent of genetic engineering research is paid for and controlled by corporations like Monsanto.
Meanwhile, former employees embedded in government make sure the feds never get too nosy.
Meet Michael Taylor. He's gone back and forth from government to Monsanto enough times that it's not a revolving door; it's a Bat-pole. During an early-'90s stint with the FDA, he helped usher bovine growth hormone milk into the food supply and wrote the decision that kept the government out of Monsanto's GM crop business.
Known as "substantial equivalence," this policy declared that genetically modified products are essentially the same as their non-GM counterparts — and therefore require no additional labeling, food safety, or toxicity tests. Never mind that no accepted science backed his theory.
"It's simply a political calculation invented by Michael Taylor and Monsanto and adopted by U.S. federal policymakers to resist labeling," says Jim Gerritsen, a Maine farmer. "You have this collusion between corporations and the government, and the essence is that the people's interest isn't being served."
The FDA approves GM crops by doing no testing of its own but by simply taking Monsanto's word for their safety. Amusingly, Monsanto agrees that it should have nothing to do with verifying safety, says spokesman Phil Angell. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job."
So if neither Monsanto nor the feds is ensuring that the food supply is safe, who is?
The answer: No one.
We've Got Bigger Problems Now
So far, it appears the GM movement has done little more than raise the cost of food.
A 2009 study by Dr. Doug Gurian-Sherman looked at four Monsanto seeds and found only minimal increases in yield. And since GM crops cost more to produce, their economic benefits are questionable at best.
"It pales in comparison to other conventional approaches," says Gurian-Sherman. "It's a lot more expensive, and it comes with a lot of baggage that goes with it, like pesticide use, monopoly issues, and control of the seed supply."
Meanwhile, the use of pesticides has soared as weeds and insects become increasingly resistant to these death sprays. Since GM crops were introduced in 1996, pesticide use has increased by 404 million pounds. Last year, Syngenta, one of the world's largest pesticide makers, reported that sales of its major corn soil insecticide more than doubled in 2012, a response to increased resistance to Monsanto's pesticides.
Part of the blame belongs to a monoculture that developed around farming. Farmers know it's better to rotate the crops and pesticides and leave fields fallow for a season. But when corn prices are high, who wants to grow a less profitable crop? The result's been soil degradation, relatively static yields, and an epidemic of weed and insect resistance.
Weeds and insects are fighting back with their own law — the law of natural selection. Last year, 49 percent of surveyed farmers reported Roundup-resistant weeds on their farms, up from 34 percent the year before. The problem costs farmers more than $1 billion annually.
Nature, as it's proved so often before, will not be easily vanquished.
Pests like Roundup-resistant pigweed can grow thick as your arm and more than six feet high, requiring removal by hand. Many farmers simply abandon fields that have been infested with it. Pigweed has infested Florida cotton fields, and farmers are now using old pesticides on top of Roundup to combat it.
To kill these adaptive pests, chemical giants like Monsanto and Dow are developing crops capable of withstanding even harsher pesticides. It's producing an endless cycle of greater pesticide use at commensurate financial and environmental cost.
"It's not about stewardship of the land," says Thomas Earnshaw, sustainable farmer, educator, and founder of Outlaw Farmers in the Florida Panhandle. "The north Panhandle is probably the most contaminated land in the state — because of the monoculture farming with all the cotton and soy, both are "Roundup Ready" [GM crops]. They're just spraying chemical herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers into the soil, it's getting into the water table, and farmers aren't even making any more money — biotech is."
Next Stop... the World!
The biggest problem for Monsanto's global growth: It doesn't have the same juice with foreign governments as it does with ours. That's why it relies on the State Department to work as its taxpayer-funded lobbyist abroad.
Yet that's becoming increasingly difficult. Other nations aren't as willing to play corporate water boy as America is. The countries that need GM seeds often can't afford them (or don't trust Monsanto). And the nations that can afford them (other than us) don't really want them (or don't trust Monsanto).
Though the European Union imports 30 million tons of GM crops annually for livestock feed, it's approved only two GM crops for human consumption. Although Brazil is poised to become the world's largest soybean exporter on the strength of Monsanto seed, thousands of farmers there are suing Monsanto for more than $600 million after the company continued to charge them royalties two years after the expiration of its patent. Ecuador and Peru have shied away from GM crops. And even in the wake of the 2010 earthquake, Haiti mistrusted Monsanto so much that it declined its offer of seeds, even with assurances that the seed wasn't GM.
In April, biotech companies took another hit when the European Union banned neonicotinoids — AKA "neo-nics" — one of the most powerful and popular insecticides in the world. It's a derivative of nicotine that's quite poisonous to plants and insects. German giant Bayer CropScience and Syngenta both make neo-nics, which are used to coat seeds, protecting crops in their early growth stage. In America, 90 percent of America's corn crop comes with the coating.
The problem is that plants sweat these chemicals out in the morning dew, where they're picked up by bees like a morning cup of Starbucks. Last year, a study linked neo-nics to the collapse of bee colonies, which threatens the entire food system. One-quarter of the human diet is pollinated by bees.
The mysterious collapse of colonies — in which bees simply fly off and die — has been reported as far back as 1918. Yet over the past seven years, mortality rates have tripled. Some U.S. regions are witnessing the death of more than half their populations, especially at corn planting time.
Last year's study indicates a link to Monsanto's GM corn, which has been widely treated with neo-nics since 2005.
But while other countries run from the problem, the U.S. government is content to let its citizens serve as guinea pigs. Beekeepers, though, are starting to fight back. This year, two separate lawsuits have been filed against the EPA demanding a more stringent risk assessment process and labeling laws for pesticides.
What's Mine Is Yours
The same worries apply to contamination from GM crops. Ask Frank Morton, who grows organic sugar beet seeds in Oregon's Willamette Valley and is among the few non-GM holdouts.
In 2010, a federal judge demanded farmers stop planting GM sugar beets. Farmers were surprised to find there was very little non-GM sugar-beet seed to be had. Since being introduced in 2005, Monsanto had driven just about everyone out of the market.
Morton's farm is just two miles from a GM sugar beet farm. Unfortunately, beet pollen can travel as much as five miles, cross-pollinating other farmers' fields and, in the case of an organic farmer, threatening his ability to sell his crop as organic and GM-free.
Morton has to worry about his fields because GM crops have perverted long-standing property law. Organic farmers are responsible for protecting their farms from contamination, since courts have consistently refused to hold GM growers liable.
Kansas farmer Bryce Stephens had to stop growing organic corn and soybeans for fear of contamination and has 30-foot buffer crops to protect his organic wheat. (Wheat pollen doesn't travel far.)
"Monsanto and the biotechs need to respect traditional property rights and need to keep their pollution on their side of the fence," says Maine farmer Jim Gerritsen. "If it was anything but agriculture, nobody would question it. If I decided to spray my house purple and I sprayed on a day that was windy and my purple paint drifted onto your house and contaminated your siding and shingles, there isn't a court in the nation that wouldn't in two minutes find me guilty of irresponsibly damaging your property. But when it comes to agriculture, all of a sudden the tables are turned."
Contamination isn't just about boutique organic brands. It maims U.S. exports too.
Take Bayer, which grew experimental, GM rice — that was unapproved for cultivation and for human consumption — at test plots around Louisiana State University for just one year. Within five years, these test plots had contaminated 30 percent of U.S. rice acreage. No one's certain how it happened, but Bayer's rice was found as far away as Central America and Africa.
Within days of the USDA announcement that this untested GM rice had gotten loose, rice futures lost $150 million in value, while U.S. rice exports dropped by 20 percent during the next year. And Bayer ended up paying farmers $750 million in damages.
Last month brought another hit. A Monsanto test of GM wheat mysteriously contaminated an Oregon farm eight years after the test was shut down. Japan and South Korea immediately halted imports of U.S. soft white wheat — a particularly harsh pill for the Japanese, who have used our white wheat in almost all cakes and confectionary since the 1960s.
Monsanto's response? It's blaming the whole mess on eco-terrorists.
Just Label It
Trish Sheldon moved to Florida in 2001, but the bubbly blond still exudes a cool, friendly California air. In 2010, she started a state chapter of Millions Against Monsanto, then in 2011 founded a group called GMO-Free Florida to raise awareness of the risks of GMOs and push for mandatory labeling initiatives.
With Monsanto seeds covering more than 40 percent of America's crop acres (a March study found that 86 percent of corn, 88 percent of cotton, and 93 percent of soybeans grown here are of a GM variety) and the agri-giant making an expected $7.65 billion profit this year, it's doubtful the company will go away anytime soon. But as consumers become more aware of the sinister problems lurking in the food chain, activists in many states are pushing for laws that would require foods with GM ingredients to be labeled, much as foods with trans fats are.
More than 23 right-to-know groups have since popped up throughout Florida especially after California's push for mandatory labeling legislation, called Proposition 37, failed last year. Chemical companies defeated the initiative, thanks to a $46 million publicity campaign full of deceptive statements.
"Even though there were lies and deceit by the biotech industry, that was the catalyst," Sheldon says. "People were so pissed off that it failed [and] we started gaining steam." This May, during a global day of action, more than 2 million protesters attended rallies in more than 400 cities across 52 countries. In Miami, organizers lost count when protesters topped 1,300.
"If they're going to allow the American people to be lab rats in an experiment, could they at least know where it is from so they can decide whether they want to participate or not?" asks Lance Harvell, a Republican state representative from Maine who sponsored a GM labeling law this year. "If the FDA isn't going to do their job, it's time we stepped in."
Maine is just the second state (nine days after Connecticut) to pass such a law. When Vermont raised the issue a year ago, a Monsanto official indicated the company might sue. So the new laws in both Maine and Connecticut won't take effect until other states pass similar legislation so they can share defense costs.
In Florida, state Sen. Maria Lorts Sachs and House Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel-Vasilinda have sponsored similar bills — but neither version made it to committee. Both intend to revise and resubmit bills in the next legislative session, in January 2014.
"God gave the seed to the earth and the fruit to the trees," Harvell says. "Notice it didn't say he granted Monsanto a patent. The human body has developed with its seeds. You're making a major leap into Pandora's box, a quantum leap that maybe the human body isn't ready to make yet."
As more information comes out, it's increasingly clear that GM seed isn't the home run it's portrayed to be. It encourages greater pesticide use, which has a negative impact on the environment and our bodies. Whether or not GM food is safe to eat, it poses a real threat to biodiversity through monopolization of the seed industry and the kind of industrial farming monoculture this inspires.
Meanwhile, a study by the University of Canterbury in England found that non-GM crops in America and Europe are increasing their yields faster than GM crops.
"All this talk about feeding the world, it's really PR," explains Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. "The hope is to get into these new markets, force farmers to pay for seed, then start changing the food and eating habits of the developing world."
But as much as he hates GM, Kansas farmer Stephens is sanguine. "I've seen changes since I was little to where it is now," he says. "I don't think it will last. This land and these people here have gone through cycles of boom and bust. We're just in another cycle, and it will be something different."
Providing we don't irreparably break it first.
Additional reporting by Sara Ventiera.
Monsanto's plan to take over the world's food supply
When you're good at something, you want to leverage that. Monsanto's specialty is killing stuff.
In the early years, the St. Louis biotech giant helped pioneer such leading chemicals as DDT, PCBs and Agent Orange. Unfortunately, these breakthroughs had a tendency to kill stuff. And the torrent of lawsuits that came from random killing put a crimp on long-term profitability.
So Monsanto hatched a less lethal, more lucrative plan. The company attempted to take control of the world's food supply.
University of Wisconsin Law School professor Peter Carstensen notes that Monsanto's seed police are the Pinkertons. "These are the strikebreakers, the railroad goons. It's déjà vu all over again."
University of Wisconsin Law School professor Peter Carstensen notes that Monsanto's seed police are the Pinkertons. "These are the strikebreakers, the railroad goons. It's déjà vu all over again."
"They're a pesticide company that's bought up seed firms," says Bill Freese, of the Center for Food Safety. "Business-wise, it's a beautiful, really smart strategy. It's just awful for agriculture and the environment."
"They're a pesticide company that's bought up seed firms," says Bill Freese, of the Center for Food Safety. "Business-wise, it's a beautiful, really smart strategy. It's just awful for agriculture and the environment."
Dr. Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University, found that rapidly increasing seed and pesticide costs were tamping farmers' income, cutting them from any benefits of the new technology.
Dr. Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University, found that rapidly increasing seed and pesticide costs were tamping farmers' income, cutting them from any benefits of the new technology.
Kansas farmer Bryce Stephens had to stop growing organic corn and soybeans for fear of contamination; he's got thirty-foot buffer crops to protect his organic wheat.
Kansas farmer Bryce Stephens had to stop growing organic corn and soybeans for fear of contamination; he's got thirty-foot buffer crops to protect his organic wheat.
"Monsanto and the biotechs need to respect traditional property rights and need to keep their pollution on their side of the fence," says Maine farmer Jim Gerritsen.
"Monsanto and the biotechs need to respect traditional property rights and need to keep their pollution on their side of the fence," says Maine farmer Jim Gerritsen.
Monsanto's suburban St. Louis headquarters hides behind trees and security checkpoints. Its business hides behind lawyers, lobbying and patents.
Monsanto's suburban St. Louis headquarters hides behind trees and security checkpoints. Its business hides behind lawyers, lobbying and patents.
It began in the mid-'90s, when Monsanto developed genetically modified (GM) crops such as soybeans, alfalfa, sugar beets and wheat. It bred Franken-crops that were immune to its leading weed killer, Roundup. That meant that farmers no longer had to till the land to kill weeds, as they'd done for hundreds of years. They could simply blast their fields with chemicals. Problem solved.
The so-called no-till revolution promised greater yields, better profits for the family farm, and a heightened ability to feed a growing world. But there was one small problem: Agriculture had placed a belligerent strongman in charge of the buffet line.
Monsanto knew that it needed more than genetically modified crops to squeeze out competitors, so it also began buying the biggest seed businesses, spending $12 billion by the time its splurge concluded. The company was cornering agriculture by buying up the best shelf space and distribution channels. All its braying about global benevolence began to look much more like a naked power grab.
Seed prices began to soar. Between 1995 and 2011, the cost of soybeans increased 325 percent. The cost of corn rose 259 percent. And the price of genetically modified cotton jumped a stunning 516 percent.
Instead of feeding the world, Monsanto simply drove prices through the roof, taking the biggest share for itself. A study by Dr. Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University, found that rapidly increasing seed and pesticide costs were tamping farmers' incomes, while Monsanto continued to lard away any cost savings from the technology for itself.
It offered steep discounts to independent dealers willing to restrict themselves to mostly selling Monsanto products. Those same arrangements brought severe punishment if the independents ever sold out to a rival.
Intel had run a similar campaign within the tech industry, only to be drilled by the European Union with a record $1.45 billion fine for anti-competitive practices. Yet U.S. regulators showed little concern for Monsanto's expanding power.
"They're a pesticide company that's bought up seed firms," says Bill Freese, a scientist at the Center for Food Safety, a non-profit public-interest and environmental-advocacy group. "Business-wise, it's a beautiful, really smart strategy. It's just awful for agriculture and the environment."
Today, Monsanto seeds cover 40 percent of America's crop acres — and 27 percent worldwide.
"If you put control over plant and genetic resources into the hands of the private sector...and anybody thinks that plant breeding is still going to be used to solve society's real problems and to advance food security, I have a bridge to sell them," says Dr. Benbrook.
Seeds of Destruction
It didn't used to be like this. At one time, seed companies were just large-scale farmers who grew various strains for next year's crop. Most of the innovative hybrids and cross-breeding was done the old-fashioned way, at public universities, and the results were shared publicly.
"It was done in a completely open-sourced way," says Benbrook. "Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture exchanged all sorts of seeds with other scientists and researchers all over the world. This free trade and exchange of plant genetic resources was the foundation of progress in plant breeding. And in less than a decade, it was over."
The first crack appeared in 1970, when Congress empowered the USDA to grant exclusive marketing rights to novel strains, with two exceptions: Farmers could replant the seeds if they chose, and patented varieties had to be provided to researchers.
But that wasn't enough. Corporations wanted more control, and they got it with a dramatic, landmark Supreme Court decision in 1980, which allowed the patenting of living organisms. The decision was intended to increase research and innovation, but it had the opposite effect, encouraging market concentration.
Monsanto would soon go on its buying spree, gobbling up every rival seed company in sight. It patented the best seeds for genetic engineering, leaving only the inferior for sale as conventional, non-GM brands. (Monsanto declined an interview request for this story.)
Swiss biotech giant Syngenta and DuPont both sued, accusing Monsanto of monopolistic practices and a "scorched-earth campaign" in its seed-company contracts. But instead of bringing reform, the chemical giants reached settlements that granted them licenses to use, sell and cross-develop Monsanto products. (Some DuPont suits are still dragging on.)
It wasn't until 2009 that the Justice Department, working in concert with several state attorneys general, began investigating the company for antitrust violations. But three years later, the feds quietly dropped the case. (They also ignored interview requests for this story.)
"I'm told by some of those working on all of this that they had a group of states that were seriously interested," says Dr. Peter Carstensen, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. "They had actually found private law firms that would represent the states on fairly low fees — basically quasi-contingency — and then nobody would drop a dime. Some of the staff in the antitrust division wanted to do something, but top management — you say the word 'patent,' and they panic."
Set the Lawyers to Stun
Historically, farmers have been able to save money on seeds by using those produced by last year's crops for the coming year's planting. But such cost-saving methods are largely a thing of the past, thanks to Monsanto and other big agricultural concerns. The thick, legalese-laden contracts dropped like shackles on the kitchen tables of farmers who use Monsanto seed afford the company access to said farmers' records and fields; they also prohibit them from replanting leftover seed, essentially forcing them to buy new every year — or face up to $3 million in damages.
Armed with lawyers and private investigators, Monsanto has embarked on a campaign of spying and intimidation to stop any farmer from replanting his seeds.
Farmers call them the "seed police," using words such as "gestapo" and "mafia" to describe the company's tactics. Monsanto's agents fan out into small towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants. Some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors; others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them into signing papers that give Monsanto access to their private records.
Leading the charge, says Dr. Carstensen, is the private police force that once terrorized union organizers from another generation. "You know who does their policing?" he chuckles ruefully. "The Pinkertons. These are the strikebreakers, the railroad goons. It's déjà vu all over again."
In one case, Monsanto accused Indiana farmer David Runyon of illegally using its soybean seeds and, according to Runyon, threatened to sue for patent infringement, despite documentation proving that he'd bought non-patented seed from local universities for years. While attempting to pressure Runyon, Monsanto's lawyer claimed the company had an agreement with the Indiana Department of Agriculture to search his land.
One problem: Indiana didn't have a Department of Agriculture at the time.
But most cases never go to trial. In 2006, the Center for Food Safety estimated that Monsanto had pressured as many as 4,500 farmers into paying settlements worth as much as $160 million.
Yet Monsanto wanted even more leverage. So it naturally turned to Congress.
Earlier this year, a little-noticed provision was slipped into a budget resolution. The anonymous measure, pushed by Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri), granted the company an unheard-of get-out-of-jail-free card, derisively dubbed the Monsanto Protection Act by critics.
Despite indications that GM foods could have adverse health effects, the feds have never bothered to extensively study them. Instead, they've basically taken Monsanto's word that all is kosher. So organic farmers and their allies sued the company in 2009, claiming that Monsanto's GM sugar beets had not been studied enough. A year later, a judge agreed, ordering all recently planted GM sugar-beet crops destroyed until their environmental impact was studied.
The Monsanto Protection Act was designed to end such rulings. It essentially bars judges from intervening in the midst of lawsuits — a notion that would seem highly unconstitutional.
Not that Congress noticed. Monsanto has spent more than $10 million on campaign contributions in the past decade — plus another $70 million on lobbying since 1998. The money speaks so loudly that Congress has become tone-deaf.
In fact, the U.S. government has become Monsanto's de facto lobbyist in countries distrustful of GM safety. Two years ago, WikiLeaks released diplomatic cables showing how the feds had lobbied foreign governments to weaken laws and encourage the planting of genetically modified crops in Third World countries.
Other wires from State Department diplomats ask for money to fly in corporate flacks to lean on government officials. Even Mr. Environment, former vice-president Al Gore, was key in getting France to briefly approve Monsanto's GM corn.
These days, the company has infiltrated the highest levels of government. It has ties to the Supreme Court (former Monsanto lawyer Clarence Thomas), with former and current employees in high-level posts at the USDA and the FDA.
But the real coup came when President Obama appointed former Monsanto vice president Michael Taylor as the FDA's new Deputy Commissioner for Foods. It was akin to making George Zimmerman the czar of gun safety.
Trust Us. Why Would We Lie?
At the same time that Monsanto was cornering the food supply, its principal products — GM crops — were receiving less scrutiny than an NSA contractor.
Monsanto understood early on that the best way to stave off bad publicity was to limit research. Prior to a recently negotiated agreement with major universities, the company had severely restricted access to its seeds. Filmmaker Bertram Verhaag's 2010 award-winning documentary, Scientists Under Attack: Genetic Engineering in the Magnetic Field of Money, noted that nearly 95 percent of genetic-engineering research is paid for and controlled by corporations like Monsanto.
Meanwhile, former employees embedded in government make sure the feds never get too nosy.
For his part, Michael Taylor has turned that into an art form. He's gone back and forth from government to Monsanto enough times that it's no longer just a revolving door; it's a Batpole. During an early-'90s stint with the FDA, he helped usher Bovine Growth Hormone milk into the food supply and authored the decision that kept the government out of Monsanto's GM crop business.
Known as "substantial equivalence," it declared that genetically modified products are essentially the same as their non-GM counterparts — and therefore require no additional labeling or testing for food safety or toxicity.
Never mind that no accepted science backed his theory.
"It's simply a political calculation invented by Michael Taylor and Monsanto and adopted by U.S. federal policy-makers to resist labeling," says Jim Gerritsen, a farmer in Maine. "You have this collusion between corporations and the government, and the essence is that the people's interest isn't being served."
The FDA is a prime example. It approves GM crops by doing no testing of its own, but rather by simply taking Monsanto's word for their safety. Amusingly enough, Monsanto spokesman Phil Angell says the company agrees that it should have nothing to do with verifying safety: "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job."
So if neither Monsanto nor the feds are doing it, who is?
The answer: no one.
We've Got a Bigger Problem Now
So far, it appears that the GM movement has done little more than raise the cost of food.
A 2009 study by Dr. Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, looked at four Monsanto seeds and found only minimal increases in yield. And since GM crops cost more to produce, their economic benefits are questionable, at best.
"It pales in comparison to other conventional approaches," says Gurian-Sherman. "It's a lot more expensive, and it comes with a lot of baggage...like pesticide use, monopoly issues and control of the seed supply."
Use of those pesticides has soared as weeds and insects become increasingly resistant to them. Since GM crops were introduced in 1996, usage has increased by 404 million pounds. Last year, Syngenta, one of the world's largest pesticide makers, reported that sales of its major corn-soil insecticide more than doubled in 2012, a response to increased resistance to Monsanto's pesticides.
Part of the blame belongs to a monoculture that developed around farming. Farmers know it's better to rotate crops and pesticides and leave fields fallow for a season. But when corn prices are high, who wants to grow a less profitable crop? The result has been soil degradation, relatively static yields and an epidemic of weed and insect resistance.
Weeds and insects are fighting back with their own law: that of natural selection. Last year, 49 percent of surveyed farmers reported Roundup-resistant weeds on their farms, up from 34 percent the year before. The problem costs farmers more than $1 billion annually.
Pests like Roundup-resistant pigweed can grow as thick as your arm and more than six feet high, requiring removal by hand. Many farmers simply abandon weed-choked fields.
In order to kill the adaptive pests, chemical giants like Monsanto and Dow are developing crops capable of withstanding even harsher pesticides, resulting in an endless cycle of greater pesticide use at commensurate financial and environmental cost.
Nature, as it's proved so often before, will not be easily vanquished.
"We are not making our agriculture more resistant to environmental stress, not lowering the amount of pesticides, and not creating a sustainable agricultural system that works," says Mary-Howells Martens, an organic grain farmer in New York. "There are so many things that are short-term, quick-buck kind of things, without any kind of eye to if this is going to be a good deal long-term."
Next Stop: The World!
The biggest problem for Monsanto's global growth: It doesn't have the same juice with foreign governments as it does with ours. That's why it relies on the State Department to work as its taxpayer-funded lobbyist abroad.
Yet that's becoming increasingly difficult. Other nations aren't as willing to play corporate water boy as America is. The countries that need GM seeds often can't afford them (or don't trust Monsanto). And the nations that can afford them (other than us) don't really want them (or don't trust Monsanto).
Ask Mike Mack, CEO of Syngenta, which is based in Switzerland. The Swiss, he argues, are more interested in environmental safety and food quality than in saving a few pennies at the grocery store.
"Switzerland's greatest natural resource is that it is a beautiful country that brings in a lot of tourism," he says. "If the Swiss could lower their consumption spending by 1 percent by applying high-productivity farming, they probably would not do it if it requires changing their approach to how they think about food. Countries like Switzerland are a good example where such things as GM food would be very difficult and perhaps commercially inadvisable."
Maybe Europe has simply been around the block enough to know better than to entrust its health to a bottom-line mentality. Although the European Union imports 30 million tons of GM crops annually for livestock feed, it's approved only two GM crops for human consumption.
In April, biotech companies took another hit when the European Union banned neonicotinoids — aka "neo-nics" — one of the most powerful and popular insecticides in the world. It's a derivative of nicotine that's poisonous to plants and insects. German giant Bayer CropScience and Syngenta both make neo-nics, which are used to coat seeds, protecting crops in their early growth stages. In America, 90 percent of the corn crop comes with the coating.
The problem is that plants sweat these chemicals out in the morning dew, where they're picked up by bees like a morning cup of Starbucks.
Last year, Dr. Christian Krupke, an associate professor of entomology at Purdue University, did one of the first studies linking neo-nics to the collapse of bee colonies, which threatens the entire food system. One-quarter of the human diet is pollinated by bees.
The mysterious collapse of colonies — in which bees simply fly off and die — has been reported as far back as 1918. Yet over the past seven years, mortality rates have tripled. Some U.S. regions are witnessing the death of more than half their populations.
"We're looking at bee kills, persistently during corn-planting time," Krupke explains. "So what was killing these bees at corn planting?"
While he's still not sure how much responsibility the chemicals bear, his study indicates a link to Monsanto's GM corn, which has been widely treated with neo-nics since 2005.
But while other countries run from the problem, the U.S. government is content to let its citizens serve as guinea pigs.
What's Mine Is Yours
The same worries apply to contamination from GM crops. Ask Frank Morton, who grows organic sugar-beet seeds in Oregon's Willamette Valley and is among the few non-GM holdouts.
This became abundantly clear in 2010, when a federal judge demanded that all U.S. farmers stop planting GM sugar beets. Farmers were surprised to find that there was very little non-GM sugar-beet seed to be had. Since the GM variety was introduced in 2005, Monsanto had driven just about everyone out of the market.
Morton's farm is just two miles from a GM sugar-beet farm. Unfortunately, beet pollen can travel as much as five miles, cross-pollinating other farmers' fields and, in the case of an organic farmer, threatening his ability to sell his crop as organic and GM-free. The contamination can arrive in the most benign ways.
"Some guy from a landscaping company goes driving by in his dump truck and sees this potting soil full of Roundup Ready sugar-beet roots and gets the farmer to sell it to him," says Morton. "A scientist who works at Oregon State University and knows me happened to go into this landscaping business and was buying some potting soil when she saw these roots, and she knew what they were.
"The company that was responsible for the roots had to go out and find all the people," he continues. "They went out and paid people to let them recover the roots from their soil. And to not say anything, they gave them $100 each. I know, because the lady who owns the liquor store told me that she bought some of the soil and they paid her not to mention it."
It's especially galling because GM crops have perverted longstanding property law. Organic farmers, for example, are responsible for protecting their farms from contamination, since courts have consistently refused to hold GM growers liable.
Kansas farmer Bryce Stephens had to stop growing organic corn and soybeans for fear of contamination; he has thirty-foot buffer crops to protect his organic wheat. (Wheat pollen doesn't travel far.)
"Monsanto and the biotechs need to respect traditional property rights and need to keep their pollution on their side of the fence," says Maine farmer Jim Gerritsen. "If it was anything but agriculture, nobody would question it. If I decided to spray my house purple and I sprayed on a day that was windy, and my purple paint drifted onto your house and contaminated your siding and shingles, there isn't a court in the nation that wouldn't in two minutes find me guilty of irresponsibly damaging your property. But when it comes to agriculture, all of a sudden the tables are turned."
Contamination isn't just about boutique organic brands, either. It maims U.S. exports, too.
Take Bayer, which grew unapproved, experimental GM rice at test plots around Louisiana State University for just one year. Within five years, these test plots had contaminated 30 percent of U.S. rice acreage. No one's certain how it happened, but Bayer's rice was found as far away as Central America and Africa.
Within days of the announcement, rice futures lost $150 million in value, while U.S. rice exports dropped by 20 percent during the next year. (Bayer ended up paying $750 million in damages.)
Last month brought another hit. A Monsanto test of GM wheat mysteriously contaminated an Oregon farm eight years after the test was shut down. Japan and South Korea immediately halted imports of U.S. soft white wheat — a particularly harsh pill for the Japanese, who have used our white wheat in nearly all their cakes and confectionery since the 1960s.
Monsanto's response? It's blaming the whole mess on eco-terrorism.
Just Label It
Given Monsanto's history, is it any wonder that developing countries like Ecuador, Peru and Haiti have shied away from GM crops? Haiti felt strong enough that in the wake of its 2010 earthquake, it turned down Monsanto's offer of seeds, even with assurances that the seed wasn't GM.
Brazil is poised to become the world's largest soybean exporter on the strength of Monsanto seed. Still, the country's farmers aren't big fans of the company. Thousands of farmers are suing Monsanto for more than $600 million after the company continued to charge them royalties two years after the expiration of its patent.
Trust, unfortunately, has never been Monsanto's strong suit. It's become one of the main motives behind the push for GM labeling.
"If they're going to allow the American people to be lab rats in an experiment, could they at least know where it is so they can decide whether they want to participate or not?" asks Lance Harvell, a Republican state representative from Maine. "If the FDA isn't going to do their job, it's time we stepped in."
Last month, Harvell's GM-labeling law overwhelmingly passed the Maine House (141-4) and Senate (35-0) and awaits the governor's signature. That makes Maine the second state (nine days after Connecticut) to pass a GM-labeling law.
The Right to Know movement has picked up steam since chemical companies defeated California's labeling initiative, thanks to a $46 million publicity campaign full of deceptive statements. A recent ABC News poll found that 93 percent of Americans surveyed support GM labeling.
When Vermont raised the issue a year ago, a Monsanto official indicated that the company might sue. But the states are smart. The new laws in both Maine and Connecticut won't take effect until other states pass similar legislation so they can share defense costs.
What's interesting is that Harvell, by his own admission, is a very conservative Republican. Yet on this issue, left and right have the same quest for greater caution.
"God gave the seed to the earth and the fruit to the trees," Harvell says. "Notice it didn't say he granted Monsanto a patent. The human body has developed with its seeds. You're making a major leap into Pandora's Box — a quantum leap that maybe the human body isn't ready to make yet."
As more information comes out, it's increasingly clear that GM seed isn't the home run it's portrayed to be. It encourages greater pesticide use, which has a negative impact on the environment and our bodies. And whether or not GM food is safe to eat, it poses a real threat to biodiversity through monopolization of the seed industry and the kind of industrial farming monoculture that inspires.
Meanwhile, a study by the University of Canterbury in England found that non-GM crops in America and Europe are increasing their yields faster than GM crops.
"All this talk about feeding the world, it's really PR," explains Wenonah Hauter, the author of Foodopoly and executive director of Food & Water Watch. "The hope is to get into these new markets, force farmers to pay for seed, then start changing the food and eating habits of the developing world."
Since farming is such a timeworn tradition, there's a tendency to take it for granted, and that worries a lot of people. But as much as he hates GM, Bryce Stephens is sanguine.
"I've seen changes since I was little to where it is now," the Kansas farmer says. "I don't think it will last. This land and these people here have gone through cycles of boom and bust. We're just in another cycle, and it will be something different."
Providing we don't break it irreparably first.
Feeding the World

Asia’s Prospect of Plenty

The Economist conference on “Feeding the World: Asia’s prospect of plenty” takes place on September 27, 2012 in Hong Kong. Monsanto is participating in this inaugural event. We are committed to working with farmers around the world and partnerships are a key component of addressing the challenges of feeding a growing population.
To learn more about Monsanto’s overall commitment to sustainable agriculture, visit improveagriculture.com. Find additional information on the Economist Conference as well as, “The 9 billion-people question,” a special report on Feeding the World.
The challenges of feeding a growing population

 

Briefing on Global Food Security and the G8 Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition

October 17, 2012
Acting Special Representative for Food Security Jonathan Shrier briefs journalists on the United State's Commitment to Fighting Hunger and Ensuring Food Security and the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.
Audio of the briefing will be made available soon.
Transcript:
Moderator: Good afternoon to everyone, from the African Regional Media Hub with the United States Department of State. I would like to welcome all of our participants. Thank you for joining us. Our speaker today is Jonathan Shrier, the Acting US Special Representative for Global Food Security. Mr Shrier will brief us on recent developments around the issue of food security and discuss meetings had during the UN General Assembly and the US Government's Feed the Future initiative and the G8 Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. We will begin today's call with remarks from our speaker and then open it up for your questions. To ask a question, please press "star-one" on your phone and you will be placed in the question queue. As a reminder, today's call is one the record and will last approximately 45 minutes. And now I will turn it over to Mr Jonathan Shrier.
Jonathan Shrier: Thank you very much. I want to check and make sure that I am coming through loud and clear to those on the call.
Moderator: Yes you are.
Jonathan Shrier: Good. Okay. So we both got guests here in Rome and so I guess when we get to questions and answers we will go back and forth between the phone callers and the reporters here. But just to say at the outset, the United States has been really strongly committed to meeting the challenge of global food security. The Obama administration has made it a paramount priority of our development agenda and through the work of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the administrator of our US Agency for International Development, Dr Rajiv Shah, we have dedicated ourselves to putting that commitment into practice. This is taking place through several channels.
First of all, in 2009 we worked together, the United States worked together with other governments and other institutions to launch here in Italy the L'Aquila Food Security Initiative, which was launched at the time of the G8 Summit in July 2009 in L'Aquila, Italy. And that was a real turning point for global efforts to address food security, poverty and under-nutrition. It committed us to adopting a new way of doing business in agricultural development, one that was dedicated to taking comprehensive approaches to the problem rather than piecemeal approaches, one that was dedicated to strategically coordinating the efforts of all the players involved in addressing the problem. It was an approach dedicated to prioritizing the country's own plans for addressing its food security challenges and its agricultural development, so it was dedicated to country-led country-owned approaches to development that is owned by the developing country itself. It was an approach dedicated to leveraging the assets of multi-lateral organizations such as Food and Agriculture Organization, other institutions such as the Committee on World Food Security, whose meetings are going on now in Rome , and the World Food Program and the World Bank and so on. And the approach was also dedicated to the idea that we needed to make commitments to which we would hold ourselves accountable over time. So we have done that through the L'Aquila Food Security Initiative, individually as the US and collectively as a group of donors and partner countries working together. I am happy to talk more about that piece of the effort.
Where the United States, we also made a funding commitment pledged by President Obama in 2009 of $3.5 billion towards the cause of food security. It was part of a broader pledge by all of the donors collectively, all of the L'Aquila Food Security Initiative donors collectively of $22 billion over three years, and that includes the $3.5 billion from the US. And we are making good progress collectively and individually in fulfilling that financial pledge. But it is not just about the money. For the US it was also about launching a new security initiative that is called Feed the Future. Feed the Future is the US Government's global hunger and food security initiative. It adopts this new way of doing business that I described and the way of doing business that memorialized here in Rome as the Rome Principles on Sustainable Global Food Security. So if you hear people referring to the Rome Principles, the US Feed the Future effort is very much in tune with those principles. Also based on the idea that we can make a greater impact by concentrating our efforts in the areas where we have the greatest opportunity to make a difference. So for the United States we concentrated on Feed the Future. We now have it concentrated in 19 focus countries where we are working to support the countries' own strategic priorities in agricultural development, security and nutrition and we are also supporting the country focused work with a robust research agenda to generate scientific and technological breakthroughs that will ultimately advance the cause of food security. So that is the US food security initiative Feed the Future.
Then thirdly, in May of this year under the US Presidency of the Group of Eight countries, the G8 came together with African leaders and with the African Union and with private sector leaders to launch the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. The New Alliance aims at filling a gap that we saw in the effort. So the New Alliance is built on the foundation of the L'Aquila Food Security Initiative, a continuation of that effort. It recognizes that country leadership is important and that is why it also builds on the efforts of African countries through the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development program, or CAADA, to chart their own course in addressing their own challenges of food insecurity. But it also recognizes that these country plans that developing countries have established, their agricultural development had made good progress in raising money from public sources, whether it is from African governments' own budgets or a donor country's contribution to the effort, but had underperformed in meeting goals for private sector participation in agriculture development.
And so the point of the New Alliance, a key point of the New Alliance, was to mobilize private sector activity and investment in the agricultural sectors of sub-Saharan African countries. And this New Alliance has an over-arching goal of uplifting 50 million people out of poverty over 10 years. That is by 2022. Lifting 50 million people out of poverty through the collective efforts of G8 governments, African governments and the African Union, private sector participants, civil society, and other participants in the effort, international organizations and so on. And the New Alliance is also taking this kind of approach that focuses, at least initially, on several countries where there is a clear opportunity. And these countries in the initial set are Tanzania, Ethiopia and Ghana, announced cooperation frameworks, arrangements for working together among donors, African governments and private sector participants towards greater food security for the populations. Those three announced cooperation frameworks in May of this year, in May of 2012. And then in September we announced three more. So the New Alliance now has three more African partners with cooperation frameworks. Those are Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire d'Ivoire, and Mozambique. Through these cooperation frameworks we have crystallized funding intentions from donor governments which were specified in the agreements, plus commitments which were specified by African governments. In each individual agreement, each African government specified policy changes that it would make and identified a date by which these policies would be changed or adopted. And these policies are intended to create the kind of environment that attracts or enables private sector activity or investment in the agricultural sector.
And then thirdly, private firms stood up and announced investment intentions. There were over 45 companies that announced investment intentions in May, a mix of African companies and companies from outside of the African region, and local companies. The total then was more than $3 billion worth of investment intention that were put forward by private sector forms. And we added another 20 or so companies with a second set of three cooperation frameworks. And again it was a mix of African companies, local companies and global companies from outside of the African region. And so these are important results that we have seen. We have since seen in-country events to bring together multiple stakeholders, to discuss ways of implementing these cooperation frameworks. So those are on a very good path. Then the last thing I will say before opening the floor for questions, that we are also pursuing a range of other activity within the New Alliance that are intended to help facilitate private sector oriented growth in agriculture. These include things like working to establish a technology arrangement to help spread new technologies for seeds, for agricultural productivity, broader African agricultural sector arrangements to reduce risk to help the most vulnerable populations in Africa to ride out climate induced risks or other challenges to their productivity, and arrangements to improve the flow of financing to projects in African agriculture, such as project preparations that would help investors develop projects in financing for them. So this clearly is a multi-faceted initiative. It recognizes the importance of doing work to improve nutritional outcomes, it recognizes the centrality of smallholder farmers in the effort as the key beneficiaries of the effort and it recognizes the importance of addressing the role of gender in agriculture, that is, makes sure that women farmers, that are so important in agriculture in Africa, are explicitly and intentionally included in our efforts so that all African farmers benefit. Let me stop there and turn to our moderator on the phone to guide the questioning.
Question by Catherine Hornby, Reuters: Do some countries present more of an opportunity for private investment than others? How are the conditions in those ones compared to the ones where there is less private investment?
Jonathan Shrier: So the countries that are, that have been the first wave of New Alliance partners are countries that had in a sense stepped forward themselves. They were already involved in efforts to improve their investment environment, to improve the potential for private sector activity. Again, private sector activity that is as much about domestic activity as it is attracting foreign investment. And so several of these countries were involved in an effort that was launched by the African Union and by its New Partnership for African Development, or NEPAD, and the World Economic Forum partnership called Grow Africa. So there were several African countries that were already involved in this effort to map out what was attractive about their agricultural sector, how they could attract greater private sector involvement. So these were among the readiest candidates. So this is why they were in the first wave.
Question from Agence France-Presse: Regarding the private sector, is there any specification, and specific regulation that bans for instance land grabbing or the ban to grow production for bio-fuels?
The companies that have been involved in the New Alliance, there are two things that I would point to. First of all, there were 60 or so companies that signed a private sector declaration of support for African Agricultural development and that declaration made note of the voluntary guidelines on land tenure that were adopted. For those on the phone, we are here in Rome during the meetings of the committee on World Food Security, which are the institutions that adopted these voluntary guidelines on land tenure. So those make explicit reference to those voluntary guidelines. And this private sector declaration also makes reference to the principles of responsible agricultural investment and the idea that companies intend to invest responsibly. That idea is also carried forward in these cooperation frameworks that I mentioned, that these cooperation frameworks also dedicate all the participants, the African government in each case, the donor governments, the G8 governments and the private sector participants, to implementation of the voluntary guidelines and to pilot projects related to the principles of responsible agricultural investments. There is explicit intent to ensure that private sector activities are carried out in a responsible fashion.
Question from an unidentified journalist: The New Alliance has been extended to three additional countries, Cote d’Ivoire D'Ivoire, Mozambique and Burkina Faso. First of all I would like to know what have been the criteria of prioritizing? Is it because of elections or is it because of the [word indistinct] of agriculture in these countries or because of the potential. Second I will like to know how will it be implemented? Who will be the beneficiaries? Government or the farmers? And third I will like to know what will be the impact of this New Alliance. Thank you.
Question from Radio Burkina: I just want to know what are you expecting for the New Alliance countries? What challenges do they have to overcome? That is my question.
Jonathan Shrier: In identifying countries for the initial two sets of cooperation frameworks, the initial two sets of partners in the two alliance, we looked at a range of issues that included the potential for private sector activity, the needs questions related to the degree of hunger, as well as the situation in terms of human rights and control of corruption, and we also looked at the potential for spill-over effects and regional impact in different parts in Africa. So there were a range of considerations that were taken into account when identifying the initial partner countries. In terms of the beneficiaries, the New Alliance is rooted fundamentally in the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program, or CAADP, and under CAADP each of these partner governments have developed a national investment plan for agriculture, a country investment plan. And that is the mechanism for identifying the beneficiaries and vehicles through which the government of Burkina Faso or the government of Tanzania is trying to reach all the beneficiaries. In terms of the specific kinds of investments that private sector firms have come forward with, I will say that a number of them clearly involves smallholder or small-scale farming. They provide a market, a channel for marketing products of smallholder farming. And so there is a number of clear benefits to small scale farmers. In terms of the impact, I did mention the over-arching goal of the New Alliance of placing 50 million people out of poverty over 10 years. This is based on the economic research that has demonstrated that one of the best tools for reducing hunger is to raise incomes. People who have money in the household cannot go hungry. And so we will see these impacts play out over time. They are not short-term projects. It is not like emergency food aid where you see the results the day after the food delivery arrives. These are development efforts that take time to show results. But we are intent on tracking those results. Again, we look among other things to the processes already being put in place by African governments through the CAADP program to track impacts of the efforts to implement the country's investment plans for agriculture. And in terms of the challenges that new partners in the New Alliance may face - it is really a question of how to ensure that there is wide recognition of what has been accomplished through these cooperation frameworks. What I mean by that is it is useful to have wide recognition of the policy commitments that the African government in question has made, so that those who may benefit from the policy change can begin to get ready for it, begin to look for it to happen. It will also be important to ensure that the many different parts of the society in question are ready to play a part in promoting the success of the New Alliance activities in that country and so that means making sure that the different parts of the government, the different members of the donor community, the different players in the private sector, both domestic and foreign , or international, as well as civil society, are all fully aware of and involved in the implementation of these efforts. So thank you for the questions from Ouagadougou.
Question from Gedeyaw Nigussie, Deutsche Welle Horn of Africa Service: My question is in relation to the land grabbing that is taking place in some parts of the countries. Some African countries says that land grabs is taking place extensively and that the indigenous people are in danger. So how are you working to control the effect of these land grabs on the ordinary people and the environment? Thank you.
Jonathan Shrier: Okay thank you. The challenge in African agricultural development is in part one that depends on constructive investment in the agriculture sectors. There is a real need for more resources to flow into African agriculture. Those resources include resources from the African governments involved, which committed through the Maputo Declaration to spending 10% of public budgets, of government budgets, on agriculture. It depends on investments, that is resources being put into agriculture by the private sector, or the domestic private sector in African countries, and ideally global investment, international investment in African agriculture. So the biggest problem is securing enough resources, attracting enough resources to African agriculture. And so the primary focus of the new alliance is on helping to stimulate the pathways for more investment, again a mix of domestic and international investment, in African agriculture. It is also important to make sure that systems are in place to govern the use of land in African agriculture. And it is not limited to Africa. It is important to have rules in place to govern the use of land in many countries in the world. This is why in the Committee on World Food Security there was this deliberate lengthy process to come up with voluntary guidelines on the governments with land tenure that were adopted in May of this year, the negotiations concluded in March, to provide some guidance, so voluntary guidelines, on the best ways to approach this challenge of effectively governing the use of land, so that the rights and interests of all that would use it, are appropriately protected. That is something that in the implementation will rely on the activities of governments of the countries concerned, the countries where the land is, it will involve attention from governments internationally, more broadly internationally, and it will require the attention of companies themselves in making their own investment plans. And again here I think the New Alliance warrants some credit for raising the profile of these problems and committing countries, both African governments and donor governments, all to take account of these challenges.
Question by Catherine Hornby, Reuters: I just wanted to ask on these land tenure guidelines. The CFS [as heard] is going to start cutting the investment [word indistinct]. How can they build on land tenure guidelines to make [word indistinct].
Jonathan Shrier: There is always a conceptual link between those two fields and that is part of the reason why the Committee on World Security did take those topics in sequence. So we knew we wanted to settle one before we turned to the other. And land tenure obviously relates to a significant part of what people are concerned about when they talk about responsible agricultural investment. So there is an intent on the part of the United States, and I think it is widely true throughout the Committee on World Food Security System, that is governments, civil society participants, private sector participants and international institutions, to pay attention to land as part of the question of responsible agricultural investment, but not to renegotiate something that we have just completed. So there is a clear link there and I think there is a lot of enthusiasm now to get moving on the process, consultative process, the process of consultations surrounding responsible agricultural investment. There were do have some work that has been usefully done by several international organizations to produce principles for responsible agricultural investments, and those were specifically referenced in the New Alliance as something we would want to implement on a pilot basis as a way of informing the committee on World Food Security consultations on responsible agricultural investment. So there is a chance to get some field knowledge. Some ground troops into the process.
Question from Agence France-Presse: The principles are the guidelines?
Jonathan Shrier: On land tenure there are voluntary guidelines and they have a very long name. It is the Voluntary Guidelines on the Governance of Land Tenure. Then there are several more words behind it, because there are a lot of ideas embedded in those guidelines.
Question from Agence France-Presse: And regarding the structural investments?
Jonathan Shrier: Regarding responsible agricultural investment, there is a document that was produced by several international organizations, including the International Fund for Agricultural Development here in Rome and the Food and Agricultural Organization, and UN Conference on Trade and Development, and that document is called Principles for Responsible Agriculture Investment. But the discussion going on in the CFS have that word 'principles' in it, it is just a discussion.
Question from Agence France-Presse: And that could be adopted as soon as today?
Jonathan Shrier: Well the process will be, there is a decision pending today on launching the process. The result will take some time. And this is because there is a desire to have broad based consultation around this topic, to make sure that we are hearing all the views. And again, that includes the views, some of which have already been expressed in the CFS, from some African governments, staying with the contents of Africa in today's discussion, about their desire to stimulate more private sector activity in their countries, including investments.
Question by Catherine Hornby, Reuters: You mentioned that you are going to try a pilot project.
Jonathan Shrier: That is still under development exactly how that will work.
Question by Catherine Hornby, Reuters: But you will want to try implementing the principles before they have actually been finally …[sentence trails off].
Jonathan Shrier: The Principles, capital P, Principles for Responsible Investment, those exist, it is a published document available to anyone in the world. And in the field of agriculture investment, it is one of the few existing documents. What the question before the CFS is, is a question of what principles, with a small p, or what guidance of some sort, the CFS as a whole endorses or adopts. And that hasn’t happened.
Question from Burkina Faso: Yes on behalf of one of our French speaking journalists from the newspaper [name unclear], the journalist asks a skeptical question. His question is what is the actual political will to follow through with the framework for food security in Burkina Faso? It is framed as it is nice that this has been developed and that so much money has been earmarked for this kind of project, but what is the kind of political will and the reality that this will actually be followed through.
Jonathan Shrier: Thank you for the question, and if you mute you phone will reduce an echo that I hear on the line. So the government of Burkina Faso endorsed this cooperation framework at the highest level. The national leadership of Burkina Faso committed itself to this cooperation framework. And so I think there is strong political will to follow through on it. I would also point out that these cooperation frameworks specify specific policy commitments and specific dates by which they are to be carried out. And so that makes it easy to check on whether a government or for that matter other participants in these cooperation frameworks, whether a participant to the cooperation framework is doing what it said it would do, because there is a record. And so we, in this case we know that the government of Burkina Faso was enthusiastic about this cooperation framework and committed to the policy commitments that it adopted through the cooperation framework. So I think the political will is strong.
Question from Valentin Mbougueng, Fraternite Matin Daily (Cote D’Ivoire): Hello, I amValentin Mbougueng, of Fraternite Matin, Cote d’Ivoire. Just two questions please. The first one is small land owners are very vulnerable and they have no social protection programs like crop insurance, employment guarantee systems. What can we do, what do you intend to do? And the second question is, with the population expected to exceed 2 billion sometime after 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa will need to produce substantially more food. What do you think that this program, New Alliance, can be of a great help to face this situation? Thank you.
Jonathan Shrier: Thank you for your question. There is two aspects to it. The one is on protecting and helping the most vulnerable populations. There really are two ways that New Alliance is focused on that effort. One is through these country oriented efforts, there is this intention to ensure that small holders are among the main beneficiaries of the New Alliance work in Cote d’Ivoire, in Burkina Faso. And there in each case there is a CAADP country investment plan. There is the National Agricultural Development Strategy of the government of Cote d’Ivoire or Mozambique or Ethiopia or Tanzania or Ghana or Burkina Faso, and those national strategies address the challenge of reaching small holder farmers, of making sure that small holder farmers benefit from these efforts. The second way is through tools the New Alliance brings to Sub-Sahara Africa to work on risk management and these again are tools that should reach vulnerable populations such as small holder farmers. These are tools such as efforts to national risk assessments that look at the kinds of risks that countries have, from climate or weather related challenges such as drought, or flooding, depending on the area and what the resources are that are available to confront those risks. And there is also an effort through the New Alliance to develop and promote risk index insurance, and this is insurance to help small holder farmers and others in the agricultural sector to deal with these kind of risks, so that when a certain risk is triggered, that means that the drought conditions have reached a certain threshold or something, the insurance policy would pay out to beneficiaries. And so there are tools in the works through the New Alliance that should help address the vulnerable populations that you mentioned. So I hope that answers the question.
Question from Valentin Mbougueng, Fraternite Matin Daily (Cote D’Ivoire): Thank you, my name, Valentin Mbougueng again, from Fraternite Matin, Cote d’Ivoire. We have a good story coming from Malawi, which transformed a food deficit into a 1.3 million ton surplus within two years, thanks to a massive seed and fertilizer program. Do you think this is a success story which can be translated in other countries?
Jonathan Shrier: Thank you for that question. Malawi has really made some impressive progress in agricultural development. My secretary, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, was recently in Malawi where she visited a dairy cooperative, and since this is the year of agricultural cooperatives here at the Food and Agriculture Organization, that was an important visit. And there she saw some of the results of Malawi's efforts. Malawi has made progress also through its policies related to seeds and fertilizers, and that is really a reminder of one of the key elements of the New Alliance, which is to recognize that policy decisions, policy choices by governments, matter. And so when governments make sound policy choices in agriculture, that can promote agricultural growth. And in the case of the New Alliance, those policy commitments, the policy choices that the governments have made, are choices related to their desire to stimulate more private sector activity in African agriculture in their countries. Thank you. Thank you all.
Moderator: Thank you. That concludes today's call. I would like to thank Mr. Jonathan Shrier once again for joining us and thank all of our callers for participating in today's call. If you have any questions about today's call, you can contact the Africa Regional Media Hub at afmediahub@state.gov. Thank you.
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----- Forwarded Message -----
From: maina ndiritu
To: "youngprofessionals_ke@googlegroups.com" ; africa yahoogroups ; VVM Vuguvugu Mashinani ; forum ; the last word to kenya
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2013 9:42 AM
Subject: CORD man tells supporters to stop mourning and identify another leader - RAILA ODINGA is “dead” politically
Wednesday October 16, 2013 - Kakamega Governor, Wycliffe Oparanya has
told Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) supporters to stop
mourning and identify a new leader to steer the party to the future.

Speaking at a function in Kakamega County on Wednesday, Oparanya who
is among senior CORD lieutenants, said Raila Odinga’s presidential
dream is completely dead adding that he is a spent cartridge.

He challenged CORD supporters to reconsider an appropriate replacement
of Raila Odinga as soon as possible to prevent the alliance from
disintegrating.

“When your child dies you will mourn. After burial, the honourable
thing to do is settle down and get another child,” Oparanya said.

“CORD supporters should be steadfast and chart the political destiny
of the party,” Oparanya added.

He said Raila Odinga’s third attempt to clinch the Presidency on March
4th failed and it is high time CORD supporters identify a new leader
who will attract votes from all the 42 tribes in Kenya.

Pressure has also been mounting on Raila Odinga, who is a seasoned
loser, to give way to fresh leadership in ODM.
------------------------------------------
Nubian community endorses Uhuru
Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - 00:00 -- BY BRIAN OMINO

Members of the Kenya Nubian Council of Elders (KNCE) have endorsed Jubilee presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta. The elders,in a press statement expressed their dissatisfaction with leadership of CORD presidential candidate Raila Odinga who's the immediate former MP of Langata. Raila been the MP for area for 20 years.
The elders have urged members of the Nubian community and residents of Kibera not to vote for Raila. The elders said Raila had failed to resolve most of the pertinent issues facing the community during his tenure as the area MP.
The elders also blamed the PM over land injustice in Kibra, they also claimed that the PM had sidelined the Nubian community in the slum upgrading programme.
- See more at: http://the-star.co.ke/news/article-109715/nubian-community-endorses-uhuru#sthash.8KFFCiYA.dpuf


Kenya: Raila Behind Plot to Oust

Ruto, Says URP

27 July 2013

THE hand of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga lies behind the rift between Governor Isaac Rutto and Deputy President William Ruto, URP leaders believe.
Supporters of the Deputy President believe that Raila wants the Bomet governor to be his running mate in the 2017 elections and to thereby topple William Ruto as the leader of the Kalenjin.
URP insiders believe that Raila, who lost to President Uhuru Kenyatta in the March elections, want to compete again in the next presidential elections.
The party has concluded that Raila blames the Deputy President for his defeat in the last elections as the Rift Valley voted overwhelmingly for Jubilee.
"We all know that Rutto is angling to be Raila's running mate in 2017. We are aware of the scheme and we are ready for it," said Ainamoi MP Benjamin Langat, a close ally of William Ruto.
Langat added that Rutto's demand for immediate transfer of funds to the counties was meant to destabilise Jubilee. He said Raila helped get Rutto elected as the chairman of the Council of Governors. The council brings together the president, his deputy and the governors from the 47 counties, most of whom belong to Cord.
Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero and Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho, both from ODM and Cord, had indicated their interest to chair the Council of governors and qwere considered the frontrunners due to the Cord majority in the council.
"We know it was Raila who prevailed upon the two to step down for Rutto because on his own he wouldn't have won," said a former MP close to Jubilee. The former MP claimed that Raila did not want to team up again with former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka in 2017 and would prefer a running mate from Rift Valley.
However Cord denied that Raila wants Rutto as his running mate in 2017.
"It is a ploy by Jubilee to divert the Kenyan public from the real issues facing the country," said Francis Nyenze, Minority Leader in the National Assembly . On Wednesday night in Karen, the URP top leadership met to discuss the conduct of Rutto and agreed to consider moving a motion to impeaching him as the Bomet governor.


The URP leaders and MPs are angry over Rutto's repeated criticisms that the Jubilee government is undermining devolution and his comments that URP might team up with Raila in 2017. But yesterday, members of Bomet County Assembly vowed to reject any impeachment motion against Rutto. They accused URP MPs of engaging on a smear campaign against their governor.
They vowed to stand by Rutto in his push for full implementation of devolution under the new constitution.
Bomet majority leader Julius Korir said the assembly does not see any grounds to impeach the governor.
He warned MPs against dragging the Bomet assembly into the saga saying they were not party to political intrigues.
"The constitution is very clear on impeachment and those planning should stick to it before thinking of impeaching Governor Rutto. For us we have not found the grounds to call for his impeachment," said Korir.
Yesterday Rutto maintained that his sole interest is to ensure devolution is fully implemented. He called on other governors and senators to stand firm against anti-devolution agents.
He was addressing a forum on devolved government for governors and senators organised by the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution at Leisure Lodge resort in Kwale.
"The journey of devolution is long and you know there are believers and non-believers. If we don't watch out, they can steal it," he said.
Rutto said the country is on the home stretch of the new constitution where aspirations can be actualised or killed.
 
-------------------------------------
 

Raila Allies in Rift Valley Quit ODM
By Mwakilishi | Sat, 10/12/2013 06:27PM -0400


Franklin Bett
The Orange Democratic Movement led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is putting in place strategies aimed at repositioning itself for the 2017 political contest. But even before the dust settles on its defeat in the March 4 General Election, ODM is staring at yet another setback. Raila’s key allies in the Rift Valley are leading an exodus from the Orange party. Former party loyalists, Franklin Bett and Margaret Kamar, both of them former Cabinet ministers in the grand coalition government – have already tendered their resignation from the party. Other strong pillars have curiously taken a low profile. On Friday, during the burial of his mother in Nandi, ODM chairman Henry Kosgey, hinted that he could be willing to work with the Jubilee government. Referring to URP leaders who attended the burial, Kosgey said: “We have now left the (leadership) baton to those in Government. We will now support you.” Kosgey said he was willing to be consulted saying he would be ready to offer his contribution to nation building. Then came a surprise announcement by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s political affairs adviser Joshua Kutuny. “Kosgey is one of our respected leaders and soon we might even give him a post in the Jubilee government,” he said, a statement that probably pointed to the reason Jubilee leaders attended the burial.RESIGNED Jubilee elected leaders at the burial included senators Kithure Kindiki, Kipchumba Murkomen and Governor Isaac Ruto as well as MPs Alfred Keter, Alex Kosgey, Cornelly Serem, Julius Melly and Oscar Sudi. Speaking to The Standard on Sunday, Kamar said she was now working with the government as a consultant and that is why she resigned from ODM. She said she landed a job at the Centre for Parliamentary Studies and Training, which is run by the government. She is part of a team training the new bicameral Parliament following the introduction of devolution. Kamar also disclosed that she is now a consultant with the Transition Authority, helping in operationalisation of county governments. “It was therefore untenable to continue being in politics because these roles expect that I be impartial. That is why I resigned from ODM,” said Kamar, who was the Uasin Gishu ODM chairperson. Kamar was highly rated as the most likely first Uasin Gishu governor, a post she ran for in the March 4 general election, but lost to URP’s Jackson Mandago. Many voters supported her but argued she was in the wrong party with many even calling on her to quit ODM for URP to win the seat. In 2007, ODM enjoyed mass support in the region until the URP and TNA wave swept across the region in the March 4 elections winning most elective posts. The ODM top guns from the Rift Valley were not present in last week’s party governing council meeting held in Nairobi and attended by party leader Raila Odinga. Mr Magerer Langat, the ODM executive director, said the ODM meeting was convened to review the status of the party and also its role as official opposition. “We want to ensure the party plays its role well and also ensure it is well organised. But it was not a meeting for all,” said Magerer, seeking to explain the absence of key Rift Valley party leaders. Until the last general election, the party had in its fold powerful ministers from the region including party chairman Kosgey (Industrialisation), Bett (Roads), Prof Kamar (Higher Education), Dr Sally Kosgei (Agriculture) and Musa Sirma (East African Community). They were Raila’s key pillars who also mounted spirited campaigns for the party ahead of the elections despite strong opposition from residents. But today, they are hardly visible even in the court battles waged by the party since it lost to Jubilee in the race for State House. Raila has held various functions in parts of the region only accompanied by Magerer. Bett confirmed that he had received an invitation for the governing council meeting but did not attend saying: “I now want to involve myself with personal and family matters only”. Declaring he had quit ODM, Bett also stated that he couldn’t force himself to sing a tune that the Kalenjin community does not want to hear. He said he would remain in support of the government as long as it puts in place policies that are beneficial to all. “Every policy in this government that will enhance welfare and the wellbeing of all and to the economy, I will support. You cannot fight the hand that feeds you,” he said.MISHANDLE Bett did not seek any elective position in the March 4 polls while his colleagues who sought various positions on an ODM ticket lost to political first timers riding on a strong Jubilee wave. The former Bureti MP who spoke to The Standard on Sunday on the phone said he no longer wants to be involved in politics at the moment hinting that he did not defend his seat because of the URP wave in the South Rift. He said: “Whether there is ODM, URP or TNA, I want to involve myself with personal matters. There is always a time for everything as the Bible says in Ecclesiastes Chapter 3”. The former State House Comptroller said he did his best to serve the public and the party while in ODM and said he will not be looking for any elective post in the future. “I will not look for any votes again,” he said. Bett asked the Kalenjin community to respect their former and present leaders. “I protest the way we handled our former leaders as a Kalenjin people. We mishandle and even neglect them yet we required their assistance when they were in top positions,” he said. The position of Sirma and Dr Kosgei regarding their political future remains unknown as efforts by The Standard on Sunday to get them on phone were futile. Some of the senior ODM leaders from the region are however said to be considering quitting active politics considering the odds against Cord’s future political prospects. Trying to explain the absence of ODM leaders from Rift Valley in the Nairobi meeting, Magerer said, “the governing council is not a free for all affair” adding that there are no provisions for former MPs to attend. He said the meeting was for the national elections board and chairmen of 47 party branches in the country. Asked why some leaders in Rift Valley had suddenly disappeared from the party radar, Magerer said he could not speak on their behalf. “Some people were there by virtue of their positions. The party constitution allows members to be as active as they deem and we cannot push anyone to be active,” said Magerer. The director however admitted that there was disloyalty ahead of the last elections with some party candidates in some regions campaigning only for themselves and not the party. “Some were asking voters to elect whoever they wanted for the presidency for example so long as the electorate considered them for the individual positions they were gunning for,” said Magerer. genuine gesture On the absence of the ODM chairman in the meeting, Magerer said Kosgey would have been present but he could not attend because he lost his mother a day prior to the meeting. But at the burial, Raila led a strong team of ODM leaders to pay their last respects. The party also paid for an obituary in the dailies announcing the passing on of Kosgey’s mother. Rift Valley political analyst and Maasai Mara University lecturer, Philip Chebunet, said the move could have been a genuine gesture to support Kosgey, an ally who stood by the party during campaigns for the March 4 general elections. “Kosgey really campaigned for them and it was only fair for them to be by his side during the funeral. But we are yet to see whether their political union will continue now that they lost their bid for State House twice,” he said. Magerer confirmed that Kamar had tendered her resignation from the party about three months ago. “I received Kamar’s resignation three months ago. She is one of the trainers for county governance and they are not supposed to be in political parties,” said Magerer. He said members resolved that the next delegates convention, which is normally held after five years, would be convened in February next year. The meeting, he added, will also be used to replace top officials who quit the party and will also address any weaknesses that might have affected popularity of the party. “As a party, we in ODM belief in appropriate party structures unlike others. We are also the only ones who held national elections early last year,” he said. Magerer said the party requires a fresh approach in the Rift Valley saying “I shall be moving around the region to reorganise branches and sub branches”. He took issue with Jubilee government for delays in releasing money to political parties, claiming that the government feels threatened by ODM. “These funds could allow us undertake our activities smoothly because we want to employ county directors to manage the party branches,” he said. Uasin Gishu County ODM chairman David Songok and his Nandi counterpart Jacob Keino who attended the meeting said it was convened to chart the way forward for the party. Songok however expressed fears that communication “may not have been well coordinated” and said they want an active office that will coordinate affairs well. Keino said: “The governing council meeting was well attended and was for elected governors, senators and MPs and chairmen of branches and youth executives”. Keino added that the party still commands a good following in Nandi County and would gain more popularity once funds are released to streamline its operations. The URP under the Jubilee umbrella swept majority of elective seats in Rift Valley ranging from the Senators, governors, MPs, Women representatives and Members of County Assemblies. - The Standard


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