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June 2015

MAIZE PROJECT IN AFRICA EXPOSED

A new report reveals that small farmers are unlikely to benefit from a maize project that also claims to be climate-friendly.


By Third World Network and African Centre for Biodiversity

            An agricultural project sponsored and financed by large companies and foundations to grow climate-friendly maize in Sub-Saharan Africa has come under criticism as it will largely benefit seed and agro-chemical companies rather than small farmers and whose productivity and effectiveness is in question.

            The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) in its new report titled "Profiting from the Climate Crisis; Undermining Resilience: Gates and Monsanto's Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) Project" condemns the Gates Foundation and Monsanto's WEMA project as nothing more than corporate "green washing," designed to ensnare smallholder farmers into adopting hybrid and genetically modified (GM) maize of which they could hardly afford.

            The WEMA project is being hailed as a 'Climate Smart Agriculture' (CSA) success story responding to the climate crises facing Africa.  However, according to the ACB report, the WEMA project under the guise of philanthropy and fighting climate change, rather sits at the apex of efforts to completely transform African agricultural systems by exploiting decades-long public breeding in the public interest, and shifting ownership of maize breeding, seed production and marketing almost exclusively to the private sector.

            WEMA is a public-private-partnership that is financed primarily (US$ 85 million so far) by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Others include the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and USAID. Its key partners include Monsanto, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and the national agriculture research institutions (NARS) in each WEMA country, namely, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique and Uganda.

            According to Director of ACB, Mariam Mayet, "the fact that the WEMA project is being touted as a CSA case study is a shocking indication of how much ground has been lost to multinational agribusiness in the climate policy space in Africa and internationally."

            The goal of the WEMA project which was officially launched in 2008 is to produce GM and conventional hybrid drought-tolerant maize varieties for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

            WEMA's partners have made their best maize germplasm lines available to the project, with Monsanto 'donating' the drought-tolerant gene while retaining complicated intellectual property rights on it. Much of the germplasm from CIMMYT is the result of another Gates funded initiative, the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. WEMA's implementing partner is the industry backed African Agricultural Technology Agency (AATF).

            The GM component of the WEMA project is from Monsanto’s GM maize variety MON87460 or “Droughtgard” as it is known commercially which contains the bacterial cold-shock gene, cspB derived from the common soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis. Monsanto in its application for MON87460 in South Africa, claims that the cspB gene would “help to preserve cellular functions during certain stresses” and “reduces yield loss, primarily through increasing kernel numbers per ear.”

            Contrary to the optimistic public statement, Monsanto’s application for MON87460 to the US Department of Agriculture was less upbeat. Monsanto in its submission says, ”… Like conventional corn, MON87460 is still subject to yield loss under water-limited conditions”, and added that MON87460 is “unlikely to have any benefit under extreme conditions.”

            Monsanto’s announcement that it would be “donating” its insect resistant (Bt) event MON810 to the WEMA project further baffled observers. According to Gareth Jones, the author of the paper, "The inclusion of Monsanto's highly compromised and controversial insect resistant GM maize MON810 into the WEMA project is astounding given that this variety has already dismally failed both commercial and smallholder farmers in South Africa."

            MON810 was first grown during the 1998/99 growing season in South Africa and by 2010 some regions were experiencing over 50% infestations to the point whereby Monsanto decided to withdraw MON810 from the South African seed market and replaced it with another Bt variety.

            Parallel to introducing GM drought-tolerant maize varieties in Africa, WEMA’s other objective is to also promote drought-tolerant hybrid maize seed among small-scale farmers and spearhead the growth of private seed companies as agent for disseminating WEMA’s varieties.

            But according to Mayet, "the WEMA model will reach only a select subsidized layer of small-scale farmers.  Further, the costs and technical requirements of both GM and hybrid seed production, currently beyond the reach of small African seed companies, will inevitably lead to industry concentration; enabling multinational agrochemical/quasi seed companies including and especially Monsanto, to dominate."

            The Gates Foundation is playing a central role in the Green Revolution push in Africa. Aside from the US$85 million given to the WEMA project, it has also put around US$720 million into the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (of which CIMMYT is a member), close to US$ 100 million into the AATF, while many of the seed companies involved in WEMA have received support from the Foundation's flagship project, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

            The report calls on the Gates Foundation and other donors such as USAID, Department for International Development (UK), Swedish International Development Agency and DANIDA (Denmark’s development cooperation) to shift their funding streams away from these catastrophic Green Revolution interventions to genuine solutions that promote diversified and participatory research agendas, reflecting the plurality of agro-ecological conditions found throughout Africa.

            The above mentioned report is available at ACB’s website:  http://www.acbio.org.za/ – Third World Network Features.

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