Introduction

This chapter traces the evolution of philanthropic involvement in Global South agriculture from the ‘scientific philanthropy’ of the Rockefeller Foundation during and after the ‘Green Revolution’ era to the ‘capitalist philanthropy’ (Morvaridi, 2012a), or ‘philanthrocapitalism’ (see Edwards in Chapter 2), of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Specifically, it focuses on two research initiatives: the Golden Rice project and drought tolerant (or ‘water efficient’) maize research. Comparison of the ‘logic model’ (Frumkin, 2006) informing these ventures highlights both disjunctures and continuities in terms of the theory of change and notions of scale and leverage that have informed their design. First, the belief in the inherent scalability of a solution based on genetics-led crop improvement remains unshaken, despite a professed shift in focus to the needs of smallholder farmers. Second, a theory of change combines the familiar ‘technical fix’ with a ‘market fix’ that would integrate smallholder farmers into commercial value chains. Third, this change model relies on a transformed understanding of leverage as ‘connecting to’ rather than ‘correcting for’ the market in the provision of public goods.

Most importantly, a focus on institutional challenges and innovations highlights as a key element of continuity the inseparability of questions of philanthropic ‘giving’ and capitalist accumulation. In each of the initiatives explored in this chapter, novel institutions developed for technology transfer and development assistance have served to prepare the ground for future accumulation in ways that may not be immediately obvious. In this context, these initiatives can be seen as institutional experiments that are already shifting debates about genetically modified (‘GM’) crops and their regulation, reframing questions of ‘access’ to technology in terms that valorise corporate ‘donors’ of proprietary technologies and bolstering the case for industry-friendly technology regulatory frameworks. Meanwhile, an emphasis on silver bullet solutions and institutions that ‘connect to the market’ is diverting attention away from the multiplicity of alternative approaches that respond to the conditions, needs and practices that constitute smallholder agriculture in diverse locations.

Philanthropy, agriculture, development

The relationship between US-based philanthropic foundations and agriculture in the Global South has a 70-year history. In 1943, the Rockefeller Foundation facilitated a US–Mexico agricultural development cooperation programme, which would later become the template for an international network of international agricultural research centres known today as the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) system (Perkins, 1997).