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African Faith Leaders demand reparations from Gates: Ending the harm of the Green Revolution

Posted 1st September 2024 in News

Over 150 African faith, farming, and environmental leaders came together in August to demand reparations for the harm caused by the agricultural policies promoted and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and AGRA. The delivery of a co-signed letter in August was timed to influence the Africa Food Systems Forum in Rwanda, whose partners included the Gates Foundation, the Rwandan government, agribusiness companies and aid organisations.

The Gates Foundation is the co-founder and biggest donor of AGRA (formerly the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa). AGRA also receives funding from private partners including the agro-chemical giant Bayer (which now includes Monsanto); states including the UK and USA; the UN’s Environment Programme and Development Programmes and the World Bank’s Global Environment Facility. It does not list any civil society or farmer organisation partners.

Protest against AGRA. Photo: FoodFirst

The letter, which was organised by the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI), states that Gates/AGRA interventions are “further pushing Africa’s food system towards a corporatized model of industrial agriculture, diminishing our people’s right to food sovereignty and threatening ecological and human health.”

It highlights the fact that the industrial agricultural models promoted rely on chemical inputs, which pollute ecosystems whilst leaving farmers vulnerable to market shocks. Environmental degradation has cumulative impacts, as farmers move to new land if they lack the resources to rehabilitate what has been destroyed. “Any intervention that threatens ecosystem health or removes agency from already strained communities is not acceptable,” it states.

Signatories call on the funding to AGRA to stop and for reparations to be made in the form of support for agroecological farming and local knowledge systems and investment in participatory farmer-led research and community seed banking. The press conference can be viewed online.

Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa campaign against AGRA, September 2021.