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African Faith Communities Tell Gates Foundation, “Big Farming is No Solution for Africa

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5 years ago

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Busisiwe Mgangxela, seed saver and agroecologist from the Eastern Cape

Following the United Nations (UN) Food Systems Pre-Summit in Rome last week – a prequel to the Head of State-level Summit in New York, this September – faith communities from across Africa continue to call attention to the wide range of far-reaching consequences of current industrial agricultural models.

An open letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – sent by the Southern African Faith Communities’ Institute (SAFCEI) on behalf of faith leaders on 4 June and endorsed by nearly 500 faith leaders across Africa – emphasizes that the current approach to food security, in the face of the intensifying climate crisis, will do more harm than good on the continent.

SAFCEI’s Executive Director Francesca de Gasparis says, “In addition to damaging ecosystems, threatening local livelihoods and increasing climate vulnerabilities, monocrop farming ignores and undermines smallholder farmers, whose efforts promote sustainable food production and protect the environment.”

“What African farmers need, is support to find communal solutions that increase climate resilience, rather than the top-down profit-driven industrial-scale farming systems proposed. When it comes to the climate, African faith communities are urging the world to think twice before pushing a technical and corporate farming approach,” she says.

Two months after sending the letter, and despite extensive coverage of the pre-summit, which saw more than 100 countries discussing ways to transform national food systems to meet sustainable development goals by 2030, faith leaders in Africa have yet to receive a reply or acknowledgement from the Gates Foundation.

According to de Gasparis, what is currently promoting in sub-Saharan Africa is based on a fossil fuel and extractive business model and reduces farmers to nothing more than “food factories”, rather than meaningful stakeholders and contributors of the global food system.

Consider the N2Africa project, which started with funding from the Gates Foundation. The project, oriented towards a modernisation agenda, will only benefit a few. And, while soil health and nutritional benefits are used to justify investment in legume commercialisation, the actual baseline measurement for success is production for external markets. As a result, local legume crops and varieties that are within existing seed banks and have been grown for generations in ecosystems are bypassed in favour of imported commercial varieties that are developed for industrial feed and processing markets. This threatens local varieties that African farmers and consumers prefer, impacting the affordability of foods, local nutrition, and cultural cooking practices.

Another insidious aspect of the Gates Foundation’s work on the continent is how laws are being altered. The foundation is working to fundamentally restructure seed laws, which protect certified varieties but criminalise non-certified seed. This is particularly problematic for small-scale farmers in Africa, who nourish their families and their communities through seeds that are not certified.

80% of non-certified seeds come from millions of smallholder farmers who recycle and exchange seeds each year, building an “open-source knowledge bank” of seeds that cost little to nothing but have all the nutritional value needed to sustain these communities. In contrast, the approach supported by the Gates Foundation, threatens to replace seed systems diversity and the agro-biodiversity system that is critical for human and ecosystem health and replace it with a privatized, corporate approach that will reduce food systems resilience.

De Gasparis says, “One of the (many) problems with the Gates Foundation approach, where a single cash crop is grown year after year, without rotation and vulnerable to the same pests and disease. This ends up reducing resilience by depleting and destroying natural soil fertility, water resources and our rich biodiversity and genetic capital. Experiences from around the world provide further evidence that industrial mono-cropping will leave African communities worse-off and even more dependent on aid, in the future.”

This style of farming which has been pushed by big commercial farming entities in the US and Europe undermines community-spirited traditions of selecting, saving and sharing seed. It ignores indigenous knowledge regarding local food crop diversity and multi-cropping. One of the results of a business approach that centralises control of production systems, is that land and profits end up in the hands of a small elite minority. This not only threatens the agency of most producers in Africa, who are small-scale farmers – those whose farming practices are based on historical and cultural knowledge and understanding of their ecological landscapes – it also reduces production of local nutritious foods and medicines.

“We saw that many of these same issues were at stake during the farmer protests in India and the same issues are valid in Africa. Around the globe, agribusinesses are trying to convince governments and financial institutions that they hold the answer to the world’s hunger problems, and that they can resolve these in a sustainable, climate -friendly way. We’ve seen that movie before and it never works out fairly for the small farmers who remain the life blood of much of Africa and who are indispensable to its future,” says de Gasparis.

According to SAFCEI’s Climate Justice Coordinator, Gabriel Manyangadze, “We’ve seen from its initiatives in Africa that the Gates Foundation puts its full faith in technological fixes without seeking to address the vitally-important issues of morality and political economy involved. As such, the Foundation’s approach supports a dominance of multinational corporations over African-led food production systems. And in the Gates Foundation’s unwillingness to listen – we see a self-confidence bordering on arrogance, exactly the kind of ‘white saviour’ mentality of colonialism that Africa neither needs nor wants.”

“People of faith, with reverence to the Almighty and with concern and respect to creation, must stand for agroecology. Faith leaders across Africa are witnessing the negative impact of industrialised farming to the land and in their communities. The data shows that industrialised mono-crop farming practices and food systems do not and will not provide the people of Africa with a nutritious and chemical-free, nor a diverse and culturally-appropriate diet that is affordable,” says Manyangadze.

“That is why hundreds of religious leaders from Africa with solidarity from organisations have called on the Gates Foundation to re-think its approach to farming in Africa. We appeal to those who truly want to do good in Africa, to start by listening to the farmers that you claim you want to help. Work with them because they are already developing appropriate solutions for their contexts. There are better ways to become climate resilient, than what you are proposing.”

According to SAFCEI, more investment and support must be given to the small-scale farmers around the world who are working to build alternative food systems that are socially just and ecologically sustainable and learn from them. It says it wants to see organisations, like the Gates Foundation, use their influence to ensure that smallholder farmers have ample support. This includes assisting governments to implement holistic, supportive strategies. And rather than giving ownership to multinational corporations, help local communities have a real stake in policy negotiations. This approach also requires a commitment to land reform and gives communities agency and power over their own circumstances for self-determination.

“Our call is for the Gates Foundation (and others) to stop pushing profit-driven industrial agriculture that impose technologies and seeds that are controlled by companies with vested interests, under the guise of a green “revolution”. We call on Northern actors to instead move towards sustainable and agro-ecological approaches that work with farmers to achieve climate resilience. Agroecological strategies such as intercropping, the “push-pull” system and integrated pest management that show efficacy in the field and build ecosystem climate resilience. These are already being implemented in both the Americas and Africa and do not further indebt farmers or compromise their health, or that of their environment,” says Manyangadze.

“As the faith communities and farmers of Africa, we want regenerative and agroecological approaches that do not destroy biodiversity on the continent and that will provide a just distribution of food for all. Such an approach requires the Foundation and others to look for solutions not only from science, but also in the knowledge, heritage, experience and needs of African farmers,” he concludes.

“Religious communities around the globe have no faith in the Gates Foundation’s corporate agribusiness approaches which threaten small farmers, degrade soil and water, concentrate ownership by regional and global elites, and reduce everything and everyone – from farmers to soil to seeds to livestock – to soulless commodity. We believe in a bottom-up approach that respects small farmers, protects land from toxic inputs, and strengthens local communities.” Rev. Fletcher Harper (U.S.A.), Executive Director, GreenFaith.

Speaking from her experience on the ground, Busisiwe Mgangxela – an agroecological farmer from the Eastern Cape province in South Africa – says, “What I love about agroecology is that it takes care of the soil and environment, and in turn, the people. It looks at ecology, diversity, and sustainability by incorporating the principles of organic farming: care, health, ecology, and fairness. Sustainable agriculture works to conserve our natural resources, while also considering the health of the people.

This style of farming allows us to plant a variety of crops, using organic fertilisers to feed the soil and natural pest control methods, to avoid chemicals damaging our soil and water sources. Agricultural Industrialisation is taking away the nutrients from the soil that produce good crops. What we need to focus on is sustainable production and sustainable consumption, as part of our efforts to mitigate climate change and reduce our footprint on Mother Earth.”

Celestine Otieno, a Kenyan permaculture farmer shared some of the challenges facing farmers in Kenya. She says, “Farmers have become wary of programs that promote monoculture and chemical-intensive farming. Farmers have lost control over indigenous seeds and farming systems and are now saying that they are being held hostage on their own farms. The Gates Foundation is pushing to expand industrial agriculture. My question is: is agricultural industrialisation leading to food security or to food slavery?”
Rev Wellington Sibanda says, “The churches in this area that I serve, are mostly in rural communities. They provide a sense of hope for those trying to make a living on the edge of Northern KwaZulu-Natal. Many of them must survive as seasonal workers in the farming areas, and others as subsistence farmers. Our churches are supported by the sweat of these mostly impoverished communities, who are far away from the industrialized markets of the cities.”

“Under economic imperialism, almost all the crops and goods that are produced in this region are under the control of multi-national corporations. Immediately after they are harvested or dug from the belly of the Earth, they are exported to regional and overseas markets. This affects the livelihoods, not just of the people from around here, but throughout Southern Africa.”

“Agro-ecological farming practices increases sustainable agricultural productivity and the income of smallholder women farmers.”

Ange David from GRAIN in Côte d’Ivoire says, “People in Ghana are fighting against policies pushed by institutions like Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). We can call it agro-colonialism. We need to put pressure on AGRA and the Gates Foundation. They are trying to change government seed policies to benefit corporations.”

Anne Maina from BIBA Kenya believes that the future is in agroecology and supporting smallholder farmers to produce food for current and future generations, in the process, taking care of the soil and natural resources.

Maina says, “Seed laws are being changed across Africa, to the detriment of the people. $1 billion has been allocated to Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), but the impacts are really low. Soil fertility in Africa is going down due to increased fertiliser use and punitive seed laws are marginalising farmers. When we demanded evidence of the positive impacts they claim to come from their approach, they would not give it to us. Till today, we have no solid evidence. It would have been much more productive had we had focused on agroecology. This is why we are pushing for it now.”

Neth Daño from ETC Group Philippines says, “This philanthrocapitalism from the likes of the Gates Foundation and others, are enabled by government policies. We are inspired by resistance in Africa because we have seen this technofix approach disempower traditional farmers in Asia and Africa.”

Original Source: safcei.org Via: grain.org

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The Great “Green” Heist: When Artificial Intelligence and Arms Dealers Seize the Minerals of the South

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1 week ago

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August 4, 2026

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By Franck Zongwe Lukama, Congolese journalist and researcher, leads the independent media KilaloPress in DRC.

We were sold a simple equation: to save the planet, we must dig. Dig faster, deeper, extracting from the earth the cobalt, lithium, or copper needed for solar panels and electric vehicles. Yet, this climate rescue rhetoric conceals a staggering statistical deception. Today, 70% of global demand for critical minerals does absolutely nothing to support the energy transition. These resources end up in aerospace, communication technologies, and, above all, weaponry. Sectors that, ironically, exacerbate the global ecological crisis. The green revolution has become the perfect smokescreen, the moral veneer for a very different kind of war.

Far from the promises of sustainable development touted by the World Bank, the current scramble is driven by a strict logic of geopolitical power. A damning report from the California-based Oakland Institute exposes this global scheme. The report reveals an unprecedented and formidable convergence of interests between the American military-industrial complex and the giants of Silicon Valley. With the Pentagon openly pivoting toward a combat strategy focused on artificial intelligence (AI), securing supply chains is no longer a matter of ecology, but a question of survival in the face of Chinese influence. The United States is not seeking to reduce carbon emissions; it is seeking to guarantee its technological and military supremacy.

Artisanal Coltan - manganese - cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Photo: Erberto Zani.

The real winners of this frantic race wear suits far removed from environmental activism. Trillions of dollars are flowing into new alliances that intertwine AI-driven mining companies, like KoBold Metals—backed by billionaires such as Bill Gates—and companies specializing in cutting-edge defense technologies, like Palantir and Anduril, not to mention the networks of influence close to the Trump family. For these players, the discourse of climate emergency acts as a powerful public relations tool. It justifies massive and accelerated extraction that would otherwise provoke international outrage.

Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world.

And the price of this hypocrisy is being paid in full throughout the Global South. In the Rubaya hills, in the Kolwezi copper belt, as in the Indigenous territories of Latin America and Asia, the promise of “prosperity” translates into a terrifyingly familiar tragedy. Land grabbing, forced displacement, devastating groundwater pollution: the plundering of ecosystems and human lives is accelerating. Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world. Today, opposing the destruction of one’s village by a multinational mining company risks being accused of hindering the fight against climate change. The rhetorical trap is devastatingly effective.

Artisanal Coltan - manganese - cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Photo: Erberto Zani.

The long-term consequences of this diversion are alarming. The exponential surge in demand generated by future AI data centers, mass surveillance, and global rearmament will mathematically deplete available reserves. Every ton of copper, nickel, or cobalt consumed by combat drones or algorithmic data processing servers is a ton diverted from the production of renewable energy infrastructure. We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

If no strict regulations are put in place to curb this rampant mining frenzy, hundreds of new mines will spring up in the coming years, causing irreversible damage on an unprecedented scale. The question facing citizens today, from Kinshasa to Washington, is no longer whether we will have enough minerals to save our atmosphere. It is why we are willing to sacrifice millions of lives and destroy our lands to fuel next-generation algorithms and weapons. In ten years, when the Global South is nothing more than a vast crater serving a militarized hyper-technology, it will be too late to realize that the planet was never the priority.

Photos: Artisanal Coltan – manganese – cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Erberto Zani – stock.adobe.com

Source: oaklandinstitute.org/

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NGO WORK

EU: IPI welcomes action against 14 states over Anti-SLAPP Directive delays

Published

3 weeks ago

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July 27, 2026

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EU states must introduce robust measures to protect journalists and media from vexatious litigation

The International Press Institute (IPI) today welcomes the infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission against 14 EU Member States over their inaction or delays in transposing the Anti-SLAPP Directive.

The countries included are Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

The EU infringement proceedings were initiated on 15 July, with letters of formal notice sent to these Member States for failing to notify about progress made in implementing the Directive. States now have two months to respond and update about measures taken or could eventually face legal action at the European Court of Justice.

The Anti-SLAPP Directive introduced EU-wide rules which protect journalists and civil society actors from manifestly unfounded or abusive civil proceedings with cross-border implications, including early dismissal tools and remedies for targets of SLAPPs. It was adopted in April 2024 and the transposition deadline was 7 May 2026.

Monitoring by IPI shows that while in some of the countries identified, such as Greece and Spain, steps have been taken to prepare for the transposition and bills are actively in development and reportedly close to being presented to or adopted by parliament.

In others such as Bulgaria and Portugal, initial work done to develop legislation has been delayed by institutional changes, changes in governments or political instability, though transposition work remains ongoing.

In other states, such as Italy and Hungary, little to no measurable progress has yet been made on transposition. However, with the new Tisza government in Hungary driving forward media freedom reforms, there is hope the new administration will introduce initial anti-SLAPP measures in the next legislative package identified for the autumn.

While Ireland has been actively working to tackle SLAPPs through legal reforms, and passed the Defamation Bill in 2024, further legislation is required to fully transpose the Anti-SLAPP Directive during its Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Although these 14 countries have been identified in the EU action, monitoring and analyses show that the overall picture for implementation of the Directive across the EU remains fragmented and uneven.

According to the European Anti-SLAPP Monitor, almost all EU Member States missed the May 2026 transposition deadline, with only a handful fully implementing on time.

IPI notes that even in those Member States where the Directive was implemented, such as Malta, these reforms only included minimum standards protecting against cross-border cases, and failed to include measures to safeguard against domestic SLAPPs.

In the wake of the EU’s opening of initial infringement action, IPI renews our call – made previously with Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners – for Member States to demonstrate their commitment to media freedom by accelerating their legislative processes in protecting against SLAPPs. This includes the 14 countries identified by the EU Commission and those in which reforms have been presented but not yet adopted.

Crucially, legislative reforms should both fully reflect both the letter and the spirit of the Anti-SLAPP Directive and introduce the substantive and procedural safeguards set out in the EU and Council of Europe Recommendation on SLAPPs.

A model here should be Poland, where last month the President approved a law which covers both domestic and cross-border SLAPPs, ensuring implementation of both EU Directive and Council of Europe Recommendation.

Member States which continue to delay or fail to transpose the directive should face legal action from the Commission, which must use all tools at its disposal to help safeguard media freedom across the bloc.

IPI, which has advocated at the EU and national level for measures to protect journalists and media from SLAPPs, will continue to monitor implementation in collaboration with European partners, including through MFRR media freedom missions.

Source: ipi.media/

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NGO WORK

No Heritage Without its People: Why Ngorongoro Cannot be a World Heritage Site and an Eviction Zone

Published

4 weeks ago

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July 20, 2026

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The Tanzanian government, under the guise of “conservation,” restricts Maasai livelihoods and denies access to essential services forcing Indigenous residents away from their ancestral lands and turning their heritage into a playground for safari tourists.

As the 48th Session of the World Heritage Committee begins July 19, UNESCO continues to legitimize the continued forced displacement of the Maasai from Ngorongoro. If UNESCO cannot ensure that the World Heritage designation protects the rights of its Indigenous custodians, then the Committee must remove the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from the World Heritage List.

Increased international pressure is imperative to hold UNESCO accountable and protect the lives and rights of the Maasai!

Read our Open Letter to the World Heritage Committee.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

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