[Ip-health] Monsanto men "holding the strings to the Gates Foundation's large purse"

[Riaz K Tayob]

GM WATCH daily http://www.gmwatch.org
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EXTRACTS: He was recruited for the position by Rob Horsch, a former
Monsanto executive who left for the foundation last fall. Both will be
working to fund projects aimed at small farmers in the developing world.

[The Monsanto-funded Danforth Center's president, Roger Beachy] said it
won't hurt to have two people familiar with St. Louis researchers
holding the strings to the Gates Foundation's large purse.

GM WATCH COMMENT: Kent showed his PR skills at the Danforth Center,
helping it to gloss over a public relations debacle after it emerged
that its virus-resistant GM cassava had lost its resistance 7 years into
the project.
(GM cassava fails in Africa)
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6979 For how the Danforth
Center is financially dependent on Monsanto:
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=200
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Gates Foundation taps a second St. Louisan By Eric Hand ST. LOUIS
POST-DISPATCH, 5 January 2007
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/E34
D9E8106D7B38E8625725A00160E76?OpenDocument

A second prominent figure in the St. Louis plant science community will
be leaving for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has been
gobbling up America's best and brightest to help it spend billions of
dollars on issues of global poverty and hunger.

Lawrence Kent, the director of international programs at the Donald
Danforth Plant Science Center in Creve Coeur, said he would begin work
in Seattle on March 1.

He was recruited for the position by Rob Horsch, a former Monsanto
executive who left for the foundation last fall. Both will be working to
fund projects aimed at small farmers in the developing world.

"What it says is that the Gates Foundation knows where to get good
people," said Danforth Center president Roger Beachy.

"He knew Africa," Beachy said. "He had the same philosophy that I do,
which is that science should be useful."

Beachy said it won't hurt to have two people familiar with St. Louis
researchers holding the strings to the Gates Foundation's large purse.

The foundation has a $32 billion endowment that is just beginning to
incorporate money from a $31 billion pledge made by billionaire investor
Warren Buffett last year.

Kent will report to Horsch, and Horsch will report to Dr. Rajiv Shah,
the director of agricultural development programs, which will fund
projects in four areas: technology to improve seeds and crop yields;
fertilizer, irrigation and other farm management systems; access to
markets; and advocacy for improved agricultural policies.

As to whether the Gates Foundation supports controversial
biotechnologies, Shah said: "We do believe in the power of science and
technology to transform peoples' lives. That said, all of our funding to
date in the agriculture portfolio has been looking at conventional ways
to improve crops." He added, "At the end of the day, we believe
countries and farmers should make up their minds about the technology."

Kent has been involved in trying to bring a genetically modified
cassava, an important potato-like crop, to African nations. The plant is
suffering from a continent-wide disease that has cut yields in half.
Scientists at the nonprofit Danforth Center, which freely licenses its
technology to poor countries, have genetically engineered a cassava that
is resistant to the plant virus causing the disease. The center also is
part of a consortium that has received money from the Gates Foundation's
global health initiatives to fortify cassava with vitamins and minerals.