PHM-Exch> From Gates now comes 'Ceres2030'

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Ted Greiner <tedgreiner at yahoo.com>

We should all be aware of this. It is an especially powerful, corrupt, and
insidious form of conflict of interest rarely recognized as such--and ought
to be highlighted on our website. US agribusiness wants to achieve the same
kind of oligarchy in global agriculture as it already has in the US. Can we
or anyone else stop it?

Please spread the word on your SM. Below I have pasted in my edited summary
of some of the major points. It's the kind of thing we perhaps ought to
have a blog for. Then a link could be put to it in SM.

The Gates Foundation’s Ceres2030 Plan Pushes Agenda of Agribusiness
<https://www.independentsciencenews.org/environment/the-gates-foundations-ceres2030-plan-pushes-agenda-of-agribusiness/>

The Gates Foundation’s Ceres2030 Plan Pushes Agenda of Agribusiness

A focus on productivity sidelines at the outset numerous other approaches
to reducing hunger and helping farmers...
<https://www.independentsciencenews.org/environment/the-gates-foundations-ceres2030-plan-pushes-agenda-of-agribusiness/>

Summary:

We're all aware that drug companies have written articles, paid leading
doctors to put their names on it as author, and gotten them published as if
they were legitimate science. No one thinks that's ethical and there are a
number of steps being taken to curb it.

But there's a more insidious form of the same kind of thing taking place.
Wealthy private foundations like the Gates Foundation are paying the most
prestigious journals to publish articles presenting their side of
scientific debates. The problem is that science isn't supposed to work that
way. It is dissonant, its "answers" shift over time, and for long periods
its findings are contradictory. Scientific literature overflows with
competing paradigms and answers.

This then is the context for a new Gates Foundation endeavor, Ceres2030, a
nonprofit based at Cornell University. It is a partnership with the
International Institute for Sustainable Development of Winnipeg, Canada
with solid neoliberal credentials and strong corporate connections.

A Ceres2030 “Global Advisory Board” will select authors and topics for
flagship "scientific" review articles for a paid-for special issue of the
prestigious Nature magazine (slated for early 2020). These reviews will
then underpin a media outreach strategy whose intent is to sway G7 donor
spending in agriculture.

The Ceres2030 definition of an intervention in agriculture is one that
raises crop productivity. This sidelines at the outset numerous other
approaches to reducing hunger and helping farmers. Many types of potential
interventions that could transform smallholder agriculture — such as
targeted subsidies, commodity price floors, land distribution or food
sovereignty, all of which don’t require yield increases — are automatically
excluded by the narrow focus on production.

Productivism, as it is called, represents an agenda.* It is a premise whose
well-recognized effect is to remove the politics from hunger and poverty.*
More than that, it provides a ready-made entry point for certain other
classes of solutions: the chemicals and GMOs of agribusiness, the promotion
of which the Gates Foundation is rapidly becoming known for.

On the Advisory Board is Cornell University Dean Ronnie Coffman, secretary
of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech
Applications, an agribusiness lobby group for GMOs based at the
university. Another
Cornell group Coffman indirectly bosses over, the Alliance for Science,
publishes papers like “Opposition to GM animals could leave millions
hungry” and “Unfairly demonized GMO crops can help fight malnutrition.”
Perhaps most revealing is this permanent text on the Alliance’s website:

“Farmers across the globe are struggling with the devastating impacts of
climate change: disrupted rainfall patterns, drought, extreme weather
events, pest infestations, plant diseases, crop losses, and hunger. Better
seeds developed through genetic engineering offer hope. But regulatory
delays are preventing millions of farmers from accessing this life-saving
technology.” Where have we heard before that getting rid of regulations is
the way forward? Ah yes, at the outset of that "lifesaving" era begun by
Reagan and Thatcher.

Another member of the Advisory Board is Professor Prabhu Pingali, found to
have conspired with Monsanto executive Eric Sachs and PR executive Beth
Anne Mumford to place into scientific literature “subjects chosen for their
influence on public policy.” Again, infiltrating the scientific literature
on behalf of global attempts by the giant US agribusiness industry to
control a greater and greater share of global agriculture, using GMO
technology (particularly the Golden Rice PR hoax) as its driving wedge.

Mumford subsequently moved to Americans for Prosperity, a right-wing lobby
group funded by the Koch brothers, whose website boasts that Mumford “has
spent her career learning how to educate the public, organize grassroots
armies, and apply relentless grassroots pressure on wayward lawmakers.”

So the prestigious journal Nature has decided that pay-to-play is
consistent with reputable science publishing. It is a business model that
should remunerate Nature handsomely. The apex of the scientific literature
is exceedingly valuable real-estate. It will buy priceless influence with
policymakers — unless, that is, someone informs them exactly how it was
achieved.
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