The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in 'Gates to a Global Empire' by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) 'green revolution' for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

Of course, the billionaire interests behind this try to portray what they are doing as some kind of humanitarian endeavour – saving the planet with 'climate-friendly solutions', 'helping farmers' or 'feeding the world'. In the cold light of day, however, what they are really doing is repackaging and greenwashing the dispossessive strategies of imperialism.

The following text sets out some key current trends affecting food and agriculture and begins by looking at the Gates Foundation's promotion of a failing model of industrial, (GMO) chemical-intensive agriculture and the deleterious impacts it has on indigenous farming and farmers, human health, rural communities, agroecological systems and the environment.