Why the new “Green Revolution” in Africa may be misguided
Go to Article
http://www.grist.org/comments/food/2006/09/27/gates/index.html
Fascinating piece in Grist Magazine on the Gates Foundations plans for Africa .. and how they plan to “help” those developing countries be “like us” .. i.e. soil/soul destroying corp-bots [sigh]
In a bid to move “tens of millions of people out of extreme poverty” and “significantly” reduce hunger, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has teamed with the Rockefeller Foundation to launch a new “Green Revolution” in Africa…
…By promoting petrochemical fertilizer, the [the Green Revolution’s] agricultural experts subjected the developing world’s soils to degradation and dependence on artificial fertility, conveniently shipped in by transnational agribusiness firms. Writing in The Fatal Harvest Reader, Jason McKenney describes how petrochemicals literally change the physical structure of soils, making them less efficient at storing water, air, and nutrients…
…Africa, for its part, has fared particularly poorly from the Green Revolution. Its farmers have suffered from the global drop in grain prices, but haven’t been able to effectively use the technologies themselves.
This entry was posted on Friday, September 29th, 2006 at 7:41 AM and filed under Articles. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.
