Ulson Gunnar
April 9, 2014
As part of a New Eastern Outlook article on the "corporate colonization" of Afghanistan's food supply, it is essential to expose the so-called Nutrition & Education International's (NEI) "partners." This is because while NEI claims its mission is "to eradicate malnutrition through development of a sustainable soy value chain," it is in reality a front for mega-agricultural corporations, particularly those seeking to impose a genetically-modified monopoly over the world's food supply. Under the guise of "eradicating poppies," the United States insisted that huge swaths of Afghanistan's countryside be indiscriminately sprayed with Monsanto's RoundUp herbicide. This was despite health concerns and the fact that such spraying would also destroy licit crops. Then citing "malnutrition," NEI began introducing Monsanto's RoundUp Ready "system" based on genetically modified soybeans, a crop never before cultivated in Afghanistan, and alien in both cultural and culinary terms. NEI boasts of its accomplishments which stretch over nearly a decade.
The NEI's partners include:
Aga Khan Foundation,
United States Agency for International Development America (USAID)
American Soybean Association (ASA)
Stine Seed Company, Iowa, U.S.A.
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Afghanistan
Women Farmers Association, Afghanistan
World Soy Foundation (WSF),
Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI)
Each of these "partners" in turn are fronts for Western corporate interests. The Aga Khan Foundation, for instance lists among its partners, Citi Group, Microsoft, Johsnon & Johnson, Shell, and USAID. World The American Soybean Association includes among its partners agricultural monopolies BASF, Bayer CropSciences, Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta. And the World Soy Foundation is a front for agricultural giants Cargill and Monsanto.
Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), who's USAID-funded operation came under literal attack in Afghanistan in July 2010, lists a vast array of Fortune 100 corporations as its "clients." It too was directly involved in reordering Afghanistan's agricultural industry (PDF).
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| DAI's impressive "client" list includes big-ag giants Cargill, Monsanto, and their "foot in the door" USAID. DAI was in Afghanistan as part of big-ag's "corporate colonization" of the Central Asian country. |
These are the corporations attempting to use "the eradication of poppies" and "malnutrition" to force upon the Afghan people an agricultural monopoly controlled by foreign corporations who will retain the "intellectual property" rights on each and every plant growing in Afghanistan, as well as the production, control, distribution, and sale of the chemicals required to sustain them. Food being one of the most basic necessities of human survival, controlled entirely by foreign corporations, is not only dangerous, it is exploitative and usurps both the dignity and freedom of those found under this form of "corporate colonization."
