A party of marginal farmers from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh travelled to London this month to berate Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) over its past support for agricultural reform programmes that would have driven 20-30 million people off the land (see item 1). The reforms included the introduction of GM crops.

There are no indications that DFID has really changed its agenda despite the fact that local people in Andrha Pradesh have roundly rejected the development programme both when consulted as part of an imaginative citizens' jury (Prajateerpu: The People's Verdict - item 3) and via the ballot box.

In many ways this epitomises the conflict over GM crops and our food futures. As Michael Pimbert of the International Institute for Environment and Development asks of DFID: "Is [the department] working to a corporate or a people's agenda?"

1.DFID's one track mind - The Guardian
2.A very British aid advisor - the man from DFID now of Syngenta - GM WATCH
3.The People's Verdict on the development programme and GM crops - resources
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1.DFID's one track mind

Eco sounding
Owen Boycott Wednesday December 8, 2004
The Guardian
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1368192,00.html

One track mind

The future of smallholders in a globalised economy looks bleak. But a party of marginal farmers from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh travelled to London this month to berate the department for International Development (DFID) over its past support for agricultural reform programmes they allege would have driven 30 million people off the land. The meeting broadsides of opposing views. "DFID believes there's no future for smallholders and they should find jobs in big cities," summarises Michael Pimbert, an agricultural ecologist, of the international Institute for Environment and Development, which organised the confrontation. "Is [the department] working to a corporate or a people's agenda?" DFID implies it as undergone a partial change of heart in formulating a new agriculture policy. "The new DFID strategy," it says, "does not represent a continuation of 'reform' policies espoused by the Naidu regime [the ousted chief minister of Andhra Pradesh]." However, the department also acknowledges "the longstanding global trends for people to seek better livelihoods outside agriculture".
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2. A very British aid advisor - the man from DFID, now of Syngenta
A GM WATCH profile
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=175

Andrew Bennet is the Executive Director of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, which has as its declared goal 'contributing to sustainable food security for small-scale farmers'. Syngenta is the world's largest biotechnology company and Syngenta directors occupy 3 of the 5 seats on the Syngenta Foundation's board.

Immediately prior to joining the Syngenta Foundation Bennet was Director of Rural Livelihoods and Environment for the UK government's Department for International Development (DFID) where he directly advised UK government ministers on issues
like environmental protection and sustainable development.

According to an article in The Guardian, 'Mr Bennett is known to be a supporter of GM technologies for developing countries, and to have helped to frame the department's policies and influenced its decision to contribute GBP600,000 a year to GM crop research in poor countries. He is also believed to have backed a controversial GBP65m British aid programme in Andhra Pradesh, India, that supports a state plan to introduce prairie-style farming and GM crops. Critics in India and Britain say the aid will help to force 20 million poor farmers off the land, but this is denied by the international development secretary, Clare Short". (GM firm recruits Short's aid adviser - 14/09/02)

DFID has faced strong criticism both for the extent of its support for projects involving genetic engineering and for its lack of openness about the research. In September 2002, The Independent on Sunday reported that DFID had been running a 'GBP13.4m programme to create a new generation of GM animals, crops and drugs throughout the Third World.The so far unpublicised programme has financed research in more than 24 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe into at least 80 GM projects ranging from long-life bananas to fast-growing pigs and fish...'

DFID was accused by Dr Sue Mayer of GeneWatch UK of having 'deceived' the public about the scale of the programme. In a Leader comment, the Independent on Sunday said that the revelation that DFID had funded such a huge programme of GM research across the Third World was deeply disturbing. 'The whole programme legitimises and promotes technology still opposed by many Third World governments and their peoples. Britain has no business doing this. And it certainly should not continue without subjecting the work to the kind of public debate that ministers have rightly decided must be completed before any decision is taken to commercialise the technology at home.' A significant number of DFID GM crop projects have been undertaken by the John Innes Centre which has also enjoyed tens of millions of pounds in investment from Syngenta.

Included in the DFID schemes were projects linked to a controversial GBP65m DFID aid programme in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh - a programme which critics allege will help push 20-30 million subsistence farmers off their land. The concerns about this DFID-backed project received wide-scale publicity as a result of media coverage of the findings of a citizens' jury with 'scenario workshops' (or 'prajapeertu') conducted among poor farmers and landless labourers in Andhra Pradesh who unanimously rejected the development proposals.

Andrew Bennet is understood to have been among those at DFID who encouraged criticism of those who conducted the research, Dr Michel Pimbert, of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and Dr Tom Wakeford, then of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). DFID, which provides around 70% of both institutes funding, even demanded the suppression of the report. Pimbert and Wakeford responded by accusing 'a few individuals within a major donor agency' of trying to 'silence critical reflections' by seeking to suppress a report that gave 'a bigger voice to poor and marginalised communities'.

Bennet left DFID for the Syngenta Foundation at the height of the controversy. But within months of taking up his new post he was involved in another after the Syngenta Foundation, in the words of The Guardian, 'pulled off a coup by gaining a place on the governing body of the consultative group on the international agricultural research centres (CGIAR). This is the network of international public research institutions which have been the target of biotech companies for yearsbut, until now, escaped infiltration. Critics are appalled. "CGIAR has unabashedly adopted the corporate research agenda, thereby accepting that it ceases to follow the original mandate of conducting agricultural research for 'public good'." '

In fact, the CGIAR's own NGO Committee (NGOC) refused to tow the official line. It decided to freeze its relationship with the CGIAR pending a review of the CGIAR's research agenda. The NGOC observed, 'the CGIAR is deviating from [its] mandate and is adopting a corporate agenda for agricultural research and development. CGIAR's consideration of Syngenta Foundation's membership is a clear indication of the trend towards the corporatisation of public agricultural research.'
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3.More on The People's Verdict

The locals know what aid they need - article
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=276687
A website: Prajateerpu: The People's Verdict
http://www.prajateerpuindia.org/
Prajateerpu:  A Citizens' Jury / Scenario
Workshop on Food Futures for Andhra Pradesh, India
http://www.iied.org/sarl/research/projects/t5proj01/IIEDcitizenjuryAP1.html The full Prajateerpu report:
http://www.iied.org/pdf/Prajateerpu.pdf
GM juries worldwide
http://www.gmjury.org/world.html