Africa Harvest Biotechnology Foundation International
See Florence Wambugu
In January, 2002, the Monsanto-trained scientist Florence Wambugu established her own biotechnology foundation, becoming Chief Executive of Africa Harvest Biotechnology Foundation International (AHFBI), usually called Africa Harvest for short. AHBFI's Communication for Development Program is supported by CropLife International - an organisation led by companies such as BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta.
Africa Harvest's website stated about the Communication for Development Program:
- Africa’s underdevelopment is linked to lack of knowledge. In the agricultural sector, communication is an integral part of the Africa Harvest programs and projects design; in particular, biotech and risk communication are designed to facilitate the adoption of new crops and products, especially GM products. Africa Harvest Communication for Development Program includes an effective biotech communication and public acceptance program designed to empower people from those within national governments down to the local level to make informed decisions regarding the implementation of biotechnology crops, bio-safety policy development, and bio-safety protection.[1]
According to Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex:
- Pro-biotech Western aid agencies have joined with these [front] organizations to quietly conduct one-sided conferences at up-scale venues around the continent, such as Kenya's Windsor Golf and Country Club, aimed to swing high-level officials in favor of GM. But critics charge these forums are facades for large corporations.
- They also charge that these NGOs are far from being as representative as they suggest, merely consisting of a website and a few staff.[2]
The cornerstone of Florence Wambugu's career has been the GM sweet potato project. She has presented the sweet potato as a crop grown in her childhood by her mother. "The sweet potato is a woman's crop," she says.[3] Wambugu has also presented the project, which in 2001 moved out of Monsanto's labs into the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, as very much her own and essentially a Kenyan affair. Some newspaper accounts of the project have not even mentioned Monsanto.
- ↑ Communication for Development Program, Africa Harvest website, version placed in web archive 10 Apr 2007, accessed in web archive 14 Sept 2009
- ↑ Aaron deGrassi, "Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Assessment of Current Evidence", Third World Network - Africa, June 2003, p. 55, accessed 30 June 2009
- ↑ Lynn J. Cook, "Millions served", Forbes, 23 December 2002, accessed June 30 2009
