At Gates Foundation, Agribusiness Prevails

by Katherine Gustafson · 2010-01-11 06:00:00 UTC
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We've known for a while that the Gates Foundation is enchanted by biotech "solutions" to agricultural problems and has been inching into bed with agribusiness.

Well, the foundation is now fully between the sheets with the industry after the appointment of Sam Dryden as its new director of agricultural development. Dryden replaces Rajiv Shah, another biotech-booster who is now head of USAID.

Dryden — currently a managing director of Wolfensohn & Co. investment firm and CEO of Emergent Genetics, LLC, a life sciences investment holding company — is the former head of Emergent Genetics, Inc., "a global leader in the development and marketing of biotechnology-enhanced seed products," which has been owned by Monsanto since 2005, according to Emergent Genetics Website. He was previously co-founder, President and CEO of Agrigenetics Corporation, a seed-development business now owned by Dow AgroSciences.

For the record, Dryden has an impressive resume in the nonprofit and international development sectors. He is an advisor to The World Bank on rural development strategy and serves on the Board of Directors of the Global Crop Diversity Trust and on the Nation Academies Panel on Science and Technology for Global Sustainability. He was previously a member of the Steering Committee for the Global Assessment on Agricultural Science and Technology, headed by the World Bank, and a member of the Executive Council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

While Dryden clearly has the background and expertise to qualify him for such a high-level job at a leading foundation like Gates (in fact — let's be honest — he's got more chops than Shah), and perhaps more sensitivity to development and crop-diversity issues than some of his detractors may give him credit for, those of us skeptical of GMOs' efficacy in solving agricultural and societal problems can see this appointment for the red flag that it is. Gates is becoming yet further entrenched in the biotech sector, a development that will eventually blind this mega-foundation to the efficacy of other, less flashy solutions.

"Appointing someone like this as head of their agriculture project is a bad sign," Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center on Food Safety, told the Associated Press. "It's clear they're doing some good things. But they're also very naive about biotechnology and seed patenting."

Photo: microscopic view of cornstalk via stock.xchng

Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer and editor with a background in international nonprofit organizations.
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