Francesca de Gasparis is executive director of the Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute in Cape Town, South Africa. 

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The Gates Foundation's Failing "Green Revolution"

Coercing communities to embrace industrial farming through AGRA is not a solution to poverty. 
Illustration of a blue hand holding a farmland scene in its palm

Illustration by Michael George Haddad

THE COVID-19 CRISIS has intensified food insecurity and hunger globally and exposed the failings of a profit-driven, industrialized agriculture and food system.

In August, an alliance of more than 500 African faith leaders and smallholder farmers delivered a strong message to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: “The Gates Foundation’s support for the expansion of intensive industrial scale agriculture is deepening the humanitarian crisis.”

Faith communities and farmers want the Gates Foundation to stop funding the so-called “green revolution technologies” through the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). African faith leaders are witnessing the negative impact of industrialized farming to the land and the well-being of their communities. They are calling for a shift to sustainable and agroecological farming that works in local contexts for people and does not harm the land.

Too Little, Too Late?

by Francesca de Gasparis 03-01-2012

The U.N. climate change talks in South Africa were a major disappointment -- but the struggle continues.