Alex Park on Mother Jones, wrote about Secretary of State John Kerry announcing the recipient of the quarter-million-dollar World Food Prize. His article points out how and why The World Food Prize, brought to you by Monsanto…
This is the 10th year that the State Department has hosted the World Food Prize’s announcement ceremony; according to a Department press release, the event is intended to showcase “the administration’s dedication to improving lives; counteracting suffering; and focusing on the role that science, technology and policy play in reducing hunger and under-nutrition.” But while the US government’s involvement might suggest that the prize is a neutral barometer of agricultural excellence, funders of the foundation which backs it have a vested interest in promoting industrialized farming around the world. In fact, many of the World Food Prize’s major donors are among the biggest names in agribusiness today.
Park adds:
By the end of 2012, through a program called Feed the Future, the US government had disbursed more than $1 billion of $3.7 billion Congress had dedicated to “food security” initiatives in developing countries. But from its conception, Feed the Future wasn’t just intended to help the world’s poor. As Obama himself put it in May 2012 at the official unveiling of a related initiative, the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, the idea behind this massive investment in agriculture abroad was to make poor countries—especially countries in Africa—more attractive to foreign agribusiness. African governments would “take the lead,” he said, “by making tough reforms and attracting investment.”
As an editor note, Park updated his post: ‘Earlier today, the 2013 World Food Prize was awarded to three scientists: Marc Van Monatgu from Belgium, Mary-Dell Chilton of the US and Robert T. Fraley, also of the US. Fraley is an executive vice president chief technology officer at Monsanto‘.
Why aren’t we surprised?
