Tag Archives: WEF

Vilsack is de facto architect as Climate Bill dovetails with DMI Net Zero

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Methane tax exempts agriculture, for now… Meanwhile the energy sector impact will affect farm cost of production

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Sept. 9, 2022

WASHINGTON — Make no mistake about it, the dairy industry via DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy — is and has been moving toward a future that rank-and-file dairy farmers have had no real voice in and in many cases are just waking up to.

From the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meetings at Davos to the UN COP26, high-ranking DMI staff have been at the table. 

In fact, the current U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, who President Biden credited for writing the agricultural piece of his Build Back Better campaign platform (same tagline used by the WEF), was the first to announce a Net Zero Initiative during a Senate climate hearing in June of 2019 while he was at the time the highest paid dairy checkoff executive at DMI before round-two as Ag Secretary.

When news of DMI’s Net Zero Initiative spread, farmers were told this would be voluntary, and that DMI was making sure companies understood that it has to be profitable for the farms.

But it is rapidly becoming apparent that requests for on-farm data from milk buyers and co-ops, guidelines for environmental practices under the FARM program are voluntarily mandatory through the member co-ops of National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the privately owned plants that join the alliance and pledge get on board the Net Zero train.

All of this dovetails neatly with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in August. Loosely referred to as ‘the climate bill’, NMPF is “thumbs up” on the deal, calling it “a milestone for dairy” as the industry “moves forward.”

(Others in-the-know who wish to remain anonymous call these billions a ‘slush fund’ for Secretary Vilsack.)

During the past 12 to 14 years, DMI has portrayed itself as representing U.S. dairy farmers (because after all, every U.S. dairy farmer pays into DMI, mandatorily by law of course). All the while plotting, planning, partnering and aligning with World Wildlife Fund using the middle of the supply chain as the leverage point to move consumers and farmers to where they want them to go.

They are proud to be working to “get you money” for what you are doing for the environment.

What we hear now is the manure technology and sustainability that checkoff dollars are used to promote brings new income streams to the dairy farm so they are less reliant on the volatile milk price. 

We are told that dairy farmers will make money from manure, from farming the carbon markets, perhaps even farming new climate-related USDA programs some of the $20 billion “for agriculture” will be spent on. 

According to NMPF, this is right in line with where the dairy industry is moving and “supports” the industry’s Net Zero Initiative and “other pledges.”

What pledges?

Did you, Mr. and Mrs. Dairy Producer pledge to do something or agree on the value and cost?

The government is making these pledges in global treaties. The industry as a collective whole through this DMI Innovation Center is making pledges to the investment bankers and global companies who are driving the monetization of climate through ESG — Environmental, Social and Governmental benchmarks.

This all has a very “contractual” feel to it – something that must be measured and recorded and monitored and reported, something that includes various scopes from the center point of one’s business to all of its downstream vendors.

There has been little if any open discussion of parameters, of value, of costs and of consequences. 

There has been little if any democratic process to determine pledge participation. This ESG-driven change is happening at a quickening pace all while most of us don’t know what the acronym stands for, what it means, what it entails, how it is measured, what is its value, who will profit from it, what it will truly accomplish, and how much consolidation it will create of the already consolidating market power in food and energy.

Control of carbon is what we are talking about here, and that means control of life itself.

University of Minnesota economist Marin Bozic mentioned this concern when questioned by members of the House Ag Committee at the farm bill dairy hearing in June.

Processors talked about the ESGs and the downstream impacts of businesses dealing with “Scope 3”. Members of Congress wanted to understand the impact on family farms, and Bozic was asked for his observations.

“In solving the climate, we should not allow the pace of consolidation to pick up in the dairy industry,” he responded.

“Congress should look to the industry for advice on how to make sure smaller family farms are not left behind in implementing the (sustainability) requirements they will need to meet to remain in business. Some of these technologies work better when you have more animals to spread fixed costs over more (cattle),” Bozic observed.

When this question came up a third time in Bozic’s direction, he took another swing, encouraging the House Ag Committee to “help the smaller farms meet these standards that the processors will require over the next 5 to 7 years as far as sustainability. It may be more difficult for some of them to meet that, and I would hate to see increased consolidation pace because of the sustainability standards.”

Does the IRA package do that? A deeper dive is required to fully answer that question. So far, there hasn’t been much open discussion about how these ‘standards’ will affect the farms and how much of these funds go to support vs. monitoring.

Industry insiders from processing to marketing have complained anonymously that they are concerned about what the retailers are expecting, what the largest processors are moving toward.

Some of it seems illogical and counter-productive, they say. All of it is being decided in boardrooms and back hallways – not in an open forum, not in a democracy.

Take for example NMPF’s proclamation that the IRA (climate bill) now signed into law is good for the industry, that the methane tax it includes is harmless and will not affect farmers.

Really? What parallel universe are industry executives living in?

Farms – especially dairy farms – are some of the biggest downstream users of fuel and fertilizer producing nutrient-dense food. If those companies are taxed for methane emissions, with graduated scales based on meeting pledges, farmers downstream from that will be incorporated into these pledged targets.

Who among us believes this won’t affect fuel and energy costs on the dairy farm? How will this impact decisions made about milk transportation, even though farmers pay for the hauling of their milk, ultimately. What are the downstream impacts of this tax? 

Congressional staffers admit the downstream impacts have yet to be calculated, but it has been passed into law.

There’s an even bigger question lurking in the smoke from that backroom where deals are made.

Reading through the Congressional Research Service explanation of the IRA package it’s clear that whether the methane tax does or does not pertain to agriculture is – well – unclear, and highly subjective.

There is zero language to ‘carve out’ an exemption for agriculture and food production. What the language does say is that the methane tax applies to fuel and energy sourced methane emissions because these industries are already required to be monitored for these emissions, and to report them.

Surprise.

Some of the $20 billion in the IRA “for agriculture” will go to EPA and USDA to ‘support’ methane reducing practices – but also to monitor them and develop reporting consistency.

Once measuring, monitoring and reporting of methane emissions occurs consistently in agriculture, it is a small step by a future President or EPA head to slip agricultural methane emissions into the scope of the now passed-into-law methane tax.

Again, no carve-out language in that bill, no specifically mentioned exemption for agriculture or for cattle.

However, interest is growing as a hearing in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Sept. 7 dug into this a bit.

Scott VanderHal, American Farm Bureau Federation vice president was among those testifying Wednesday. The hearing pertained to a series of ‘protective’ bills for everything from livestock to motorsports in terms of the Clean Air Act through which emissions monitoring and reporting falls.

Interest is now even higher for bills like S. 1475 to protect livestock operations from permits being granted based on emissions. This now takes on a whole new meaning when contemplating a methane tax in the IRA package that is – for now – limited to industries that are monitored and required to report.

Expect to see stepped up interest from Farm Bureau as the methane tax falls into EPA’s warm embrace.

In conversations with congressional staffers, it’s also clear that new leadership in Washington, a new Congress, a new President, can make some changes to executive orders that have come to pass under the current administration, but changing the laws that have passed in this Congress will be more difficult.

However, the scope of the implementation process for the IRA funding (2023-26) will be greatly influenced by the 2023 Farm Bill reauthorization. Those funds will not have been spent yet, and can be rescinded or reallocated by Congress to other areas within the 2023 Farm Bill.

These laws are open to interpretation, so the executive branch has the power to take things in a positive or negative direction where agriculture is concerned.

What does all of this mean for dairy farmers?

First, it is possible that a portion of the $20 billion for agriculture and the environment will fund good programs that are positive for farmers and the environment. But at the same time, look at where the emphasis has been on the part of NMPF and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy under DMI’s umbrella. 

The emphasis is on revenue streams for dairy farms from something other than milk. The emphasis is on digesters and renewable energy. The emphasis can also be on regenerative agriculture, but this is an area that doesn’t produce much profit for others, so will it gain traction?

What happens when these government billions and industry / checkoff pledges become embedded at the farm level? What happens to the farms of the small to mid-sized scale under 3000 cows that are not going to be able to capitalize on the California goldrush to RNG fuels from methane digesters?

As good as digester technology can be in the situations where it provides positives – it is not the panacea, and it leaves most of today’s dairy producers on the sidelines from a revenue standpoint, while setting a standards bar that they may or may not be able to reached by other means – and should they have to honor these pledges they did not make?

In many cases, obtaining a milk market may rely upon participation in these pledges, which means small to mid-sized processors outside of the 800-lb gorilla are beginning to sit up and take notice too.

Yes. This most definitely impacts dairy. The industry via DMI and NMPF and their partners say dairy is moving forward to embrace the Vilsack ‘slush fund’ the Congress and President Biden have made available. They call it a partnership.

Instead of government rules, you, Mr. and Mrs. Dairy Producer are getting government help, support and partnership. You are getting a government that sees the value in what you are doing and will pay you for it. 

That’s what we are being told, but we aren’t being told about the monitoring and reporting and the consequences thereafter.

NMPF says the $20 billion for agriculture in the IRA will assist and support and partner with farmers to value their sustainability. That is all well and good until the carrot transforms into a stick. It all depends on where the drivers of the pledges are going.

Can we please have an open discussion of the pledges before making them?

My advice for farmers? Do what is good and right for your farm, for your community, your animals, the environment around you, within your means, and yes, government programs that help cost-share a beneficial practice are a good thing, a win-win.

But when the talk turns into pledges and deadlines and terms that sound contractual, beware. 

When asked for proprietary information about your farm, ask the asker how it will be used and what its value is. Ask for this in writing. Don’t sign anything without taking time to understand it or have an attorney perhaps review it.

When you are asked tough questions about your farm, ask the questioner tough questions about why they want to know.

Be polite, engage in a discussion, and make them explain it. Then tell them you’ll want to think it over. 

President Ronald Reagan said it best. “The top nine most terrifying words in the English Language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

As much as we may want to believe the collective “they” are here to help, take nothing for granted.

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On Life, Liberty, Land and Pursuit of Happiness

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EDITORIAL: Deals with the devil at Davos come down to money invested to control carbon, essential to life

By Sherry Bunting, published in Farmshine Newspaper, June 17, 2022

‘Deals with the Devil at Davos’ published in Farmshine June 10, 2022 may have left some readers’ heads spinning. So, let me boil it down to what I see happening: The ramping up of a pervasive global transformation of life itself being leveraged on the masses by the biggest actors in food, energy, capital and policy.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is the place where plans are hatched to transform food and energy in the name of sustainable climate and environment. (Great Reset)

This includes goals of setting aside 30% of the earth’s land surface by 2030 for re-wilding and biodiversity – 50% by 2050. 

This includes top-tier elite billionaire investor plans to transform food through plant-based and lab-created meat and dairy lookalikes and blends, with the purpose of replacing livestock, especially cattle.

This includes “sustainability” measures being enacted by the world’s largest global food and agriculture companies as the leverage point to position producers and consumers into the headlocks of their vision, their capital, their control.

The bottom line is that the dairy and beef checkoff programs have joined in by creating alliances and initiatives as partners with these WEF actors, including individuals, corporations and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). This gives the appearance of a bottom-up approach, when in reality it is top-down, and has been gradually bringing more farm-level decisions and practices in line with what the Davos crowd is cooking up.

The vehicle? Measuring, tracking and controlling carbon. 

In other words, controlling energy, food, and land, and with it life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, with a strategy to condition the next generation to accept an alternate reality.

The specifics mentioned in the analysis last week include the involvement of the checkoff programs, through memorandums of understanding with USDA, WWF and others, to position schoolchildren as “agents of change.”

In short, checkoff funds are used at the national level for many things, one key element being dairy transformation to fall in line with the transformation goals of the globalist elites. We can see the business and policy changes that translate to the farm level just beginning amid a void of understanding for the essential role cattle play in true environmental sustainability and the carbon cycle of life itself.

Of all farm and food animals, the life cycle of cattle is tied to the largest land base. Think about that in the context of the land set-aside goals for 2030 and 2050.

Meanwhile, the consumers that the farmers think they are reaching with their checkoff dollars are having their voices stolen by the supply chain actors. On the other end of the spectrum, farmers are also having their voice stolen as their mandatory dollars target the ways they are and may be expected to conform in order to access this narrowing and consolidating supply chain leverage point and the capital to run their farms.

When farmers and consumers talk directly to one another, they find out that they care about the same things and can reach mutual respect and understanding – as long as the WEF’s Klaus Schwab and friends don’t use their position in the supply chain leverage point, the middle, to set the rules of the game.

How are they herding farmers and consumers into headlocks? By transforming the future through their definitions of measuring, tracking and controlling carbon – the essence of life.

These things are happening without voice or vote, and in part, mandatory checkoff funds have been instrumental over the past 12 to 14 years in shaping this transformation through alliances.

Life on earth would not be possible without carbon. It is one of the most important chemical elements because it is the main element in all living things and because it can make so many different compounds and can exist in different forms.

Bottomline: The measuring, tracking, trading and control of carbon means the measuring, tracking, trading and control of life. 

Who will have a voice in life when there is a global consortium laying out the control, access and transformation for the essential element of life – never mind liberty, land (property), and the pursuit of happiness.

Most farmers think they are promoting and educating consumers with checkoff funds. Yes, they are to some degree. However, a significant portion of those funds and/or the direction of funding is tied up in sustainability alliances that ultimately redirect the Davos-hatched transformation agenda right back onto the farm.

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Deals with the devil at Davos; it all comes down to money… and land

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WEF panel at Davos on redirecting capital in agriculture. (screen capture)

NEWS / ANALYSIS

By Sherry Bunting, published in Farmshine Newspaper, June 10, 2022

DAVOS — Let’s follow your checkoff money all the way to Davos, where Klaus Schwab and friends, known as the World Economic Forum (WEF), gather annually in Switzerland. This is where globalist elites have been plotting and planning the net zero economy, complete with food transformation maps.

On May 26, your message was delivered and your future was signed up, with your money through your checkoff programs — a plan 14 years in the making under the DMI umbrella of multiple so-called non-profit foundations and alliances.

Some of the same global actors in the WEF food transformation movement are also represented in the various non-profit alliances that were created by your checkoff in the 2008 through 2012 time-period.

At Davos, the May 26 panel on “redirecting capital in agriculture” is where “farmers voices were heard for the first time,” they said.

Don’t worry, the purpose was to get you the money from Davos billionaires to do all the things they will be requiring you to do to be part of the new net zero economy they are creating with the net zero goal DMI has set for you — despite the fact you didn’t vote on it or sign up for it, and experts can’t even agree on what it means or how it will be measured.

But that’s okay, your checkoff created surveys, sustainability platforms and strategic alliance non-profits to bring the largest processors together “pre-competitively” to set the timelines, plan the parameters, and craft your messages.

DMI “thought leaders” often talk about getting ahead of “societal issues” such as animal care and the environment via the Innovation Center — to avoid regulation. That is the basis of the FARM program, for example.

But the reality is the regulatory side has at least some accountability — a process via our democratic republic if we still have one. 

What democratic process was used to determine the rules your farm will live by — as decreed by the corporations buying what you produce, and now also the access to capital you will need to continue?

Consumers have not asked for this, and neither have you. But your checkoff has done it for you and will help you navigate.

DMI issued a press release just a few days before Davos about how the Sustainability Summit they held state-side to help you, the farmer, navigate this new future they have been creating with your checkoff money.

“Never has the opportunity been greater for us to come together and demonstrate our collective impact,” said DMI CEO Barb O’Brien in opening the pre-Davos Summit. “And frankly, never has it been more urgent as we work to meet the growing demands and expectations of both customers and consumers around personal wellness, environmental sustainability and food security.”

These are pretty words.

The press release cites the U.S. Dairy Stewardship Commitment as having 35 companies representing 75% of the milk market signed on. The four pieces DMI is working on were listed in a vague way: 1) utilizing new ‘digital frontiers’ for point-of-purchase ‘strategies’, 2) promoting a new definition of ‘health and wellness’, 3) fulfilling an ‘impact imperative’ they say exists among consumers positioning U.S. Dairy as the leader in addressing societal challenges such as climate change, and 4) targeting ‘inclusive relevance,’ which O’Brien said Gen Z is the driver as the most diverse generation to-date with societal expectations for companies and brands.

Two weeks later, the thought leader representing you in Davos told the gathered elite, the billionaires, the power-centers, that your soil has “perpetual societal value” and should be invested-in and traded as an “asset class,” that farmers are the “eco workforce to be deployed,” and that investors and lenders should “redirect capital” to “de-risk” the investments farmers must make as “climate warriors that are planting the future.”

We missed that memo. Lots of buzz terms here, so let them sink in.

Here’s the reality: Farmers’ voices were NOT heard in Davos. Instead, what was heard was the voices of the WEF billionaires, the WWF supply-chain leveraging model, the string-pullers (thought leaders), and the plan-developers. 

The World Wildlife Fund 2012 “Better Production for a Living Planet” identifies the strategy depicted in this graphic on biodiversity (30×30), water and climate. Instead of trying to change the habits of 7 billion consumers or working directly with 1.5 billion producers worldwide, WWF stated that their research identified a “practical solution” to leverage about 300 to 500 companies that control 70% of food choices. By partnering with dairy and beef checkoff national boards in this “pre-competitive” strategy, WWF has essentially used farmer funds to implement their priorities in lockstep with the World Economic Forum. Image from 2012 WWF Report

We don’t even know all the tentacles behind the pretty words used to describe what you have already been signed up for. Rest assured, DMI will roll them out gradually through the Innovation Center and FARM, and investors, lenders and others will put them in the fine print of farmer access to capital and markets.

It’s more truthful to say the farmers’ voice is being stolen in this process.

Your autonomy, independence and decision-making is being overridden. Your permission is being granted for the WEF Davos billionaires to step right up, help themselves, and determine your options, your future through their investments in a soils asset class — because, climate.

During the WEF panel, it was Erin Fitzgerald who carried “the farmers’ voice” to Davos.

Erin Fitzgerald (USFRA photo)

Fitzgerald is CEO of U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action (name changed in 2020 from the previous U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance). She became the USFRA CEO in 2018 after spending the previous 11 years working for DMI as Vice President of Sustainability and several other roles and titles while the FARM program and net zero framework was being developed. She spoke “for farmers and ranchers” in four sessions at the WEF annual meeting in Davos, including one panel about redirecting capital in agriculture, where she talked about soil as an “asset class” and farmers as the “eco workforce.”

During her comments on the Davos panel about “redirecting capital,” she made it clear that your consumer is “no longer the person at the checkout” in the grocery store. She said it’s the pension fund investors looking for low-risk investments. 

Even that is not entirely accurate. The truth is that DMI — in the creation of its many precompetitive alliances — has its sights set on bigger fish: the billionaires at Davos, the venture capitalists, the global corporations investing in climate. 

In fact, this is being driven behind the scenes by Edelman, the global PR firm that receives $16 to $18 million in checkoff funds annually as the contractor for DMI over the past decade of plotting and planning. Edelman is a key player at Davos. GENYOUth was the Edelman brainchild, and outgoing CEO Alexis Glick was originally tapped by Richard Edelman, himself, to lead GENYOUth as a former financial analyst who made Davos a high point of her itinerary.

Back to the WEF panel on May 26 — the messages that have been crafted were touted, along with a narrative about what you will do in the next 30 harvests as the “eco workforce” of the “new global net zero economy.”

Listening to some of the livestreamed sessions, other panels highlighted the future of food, energy and financing to all be rooted in carbon impact.

Some panels noted the fast pace of the WEF global transformation is creating inflation pain, but the globalist elites are not concerned, even saying “that’s a good thing.”

Other panels delved into individual carbon tracking, to measure, record and score what each one of us eats, where we go, how we get there.

Truth be told, consumers are also being signed up for the net zero economy, although most don’t even know it yet. In a free America, I’m not sure we voted on this global-control-fast-track either.

Fitzgerald, whose role is described as “building sustainable food systems of the future,” laid it out for the crowd of investors, corporations, regulators, and government officials.

On the Davos stage, she said she brought the farmers’ message and referred specifically to the DMI board chair as “my chair Marilyn, a farmer from Pennsylvania.” (Marilyn Hershey also sits on the USFRA board.) 

In the ‘redirecting capital’ discussion, another layer of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) model of leveraging the few players in the middle of the food supply chain to move consumers and producers at both ends was very much in play.

This is not surprising. The DMI alliance with WWF also spanned a 12-year period from 2008 to 2020 when all of these non-profit alliances were formed under the DMI umbrella to bring global processors together as a platform for “pre-competitively” determining how all farms will operate in the future.

Your innovation and hard work were mentioned, but no credit was given to where you are, what you already accomplish, as farmers. It is all forward-looking to annually “make progress” over “the next 30 harvests.”

The stage was set for farmers to see capital “redirected” to de-risk certain types of operations and to make the soil you farm an “asset class.”

“We officially have our first solution,” declared the Davos panel moderator, turning to the panelist sitting beside Fitzgerald, saying “that’s your area, let’s do it.” Who was this panelist? None other than David MacLennan, the board chair and CEO of Cargill, and a former member of the Chicago Board of Trade and Board of Options Exchange.

Think about this for a moment. Soil as an asset class dovetails nicely with the 30 x 30 land grab, another WEF / WWF / Great Reset / Build Back Better invention.

Lured by money or financing, the soil you farm — if it becomes a tradable asset class with financing channeled to certain practices begs this question: Whose land does it become and what will be your accountability through the Security and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for disclosures? Farm Bureau is already sounding the alarm on proposed rules about supply chain producers being an open book to the SEC for claims made by companies buying their raw commodities.

More importantly, who will make the decisions on your farm? Fitzgerald asked the audience to “put aside the term ‘farmer’ and think about ‘these people’ as the “eco workforce.’”

Your voice, through your checkoff, just went into the den of thieves to offer your land, your future, your autonomy — as a farmer, rancher, landowner, generational steward of God-given resources in your community — and put it on a silver platter for the Davos global elites under the feel-good message of farmer as climate warrior, an eco workforce planting the future in the net zero economy.

They said your voice was heard, your story was told, and they’ll get you the investment funds for projects. In  “thinking about soils as a perpetual asset to society,” Fitzgerald said investors can do what was done for the renewable energy sector in 2008 to “prop it up and get it moving.”

“This eco workforce has boots on the ground,” she said. “They have every bit of capability, but they’re going to be battling the real effects of disrupted markets and climate change, and they also have unbelievable talent. Our farmers are doing amazing work as climate eco warriors. Are we as business agents of change here at Davos really creating the finance models to de-risk their investment to let them plant the future and be the eco warriors they can be in the fight on climate change?” 

More pretty words that might sound inspiring to some, until we pull back the layers and realize deals are being made with the devil.

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Gates et. al. peddle fake food, climate propaganda; Guarding real food ID will be critical

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Bill Gates is pictured here in a Jan. 27, 2021 screenshot talking about carbon markets during the World Economic Forum Davos Agenda 21 livestream. A massive land grab is underway at the same time as this push toward ‘synthetic animal protein’ and as the WEF and UN goals of 30 x 30 are implemented. Big tech billionaires, like Gates the single largest owner of  U.S. farmland, are heavily invested in ‘synthetic animal protein’ (otherwise known as ‘lab-garbage’). WEF screenshot by Sherry Bunting

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Feb. 26, 2021

EAST EARL, Pa. — Bill Gates gave hair-raising interviews last week with the Feb. 16th release of his new book: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. In it, Gates lays out what he says it will take to eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to ‘save the planet’.

Grabbing headlines is the Microsoft founder and software developer’s proclamation that ‘rich’ nations should move to 100% synthetic animal protein, while ‘poor’ nations, like Africa, can keep consuming animal-sourced proteins — if they reduce animal GHGs and environmental footprint by “merging-in” the meat and milk genetics and other technologies that have made U.S. cattle herds so productive.

Specifically, in a published interview with MIT Technology Review, Gates was asked: “Do you believe plant-based and lab-grown meats could be the full solution to the protein problem globally?”

Gates replied: “No, I don’t think the poorest 80 countries will be eating synthetic meat. I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time. Eventually, that ‘green premium’ is modest enough that you can sort of change the (behavior of) people or use regulation to totally shift demand.”

That’s a mouthful.

Gates laments the “politics” of animal-sourced foods being a challenge for his fake-food-based climate goals and investments. “There are all these bills that say it’s got to be called, basically, ‘lab garbage’ to be sold,” Gates said. “They don’t want us to use the beef label.”

He goes on in the interview to explain why poor countries will continue to animal-source protein.

“For Africa and other poor countries, we’ll have to use animal genetics to dramatically raise the amount of beef per emissions for them. Weirdly,” says Gates in the MIT interview, “the U.S. livestock, because they’re so productive, the emissions per pound of beef are dramatically less than emissions per pound in Africa. And as part of the (Bill and Melinda Gates) Foundation’s work, we’re taking the benefit of the African livestock, which means they can survive in heat, and crossing-in the monstrous productivity both on the meat side and the milk side of the elite U.S. lines.”

Here’s the thing. A month before his book release, Gates made headlines as “the man who is about to change the way America farms.” In January, the 2020 Land Report 100 featured Gates as “America’s leading farmland owner with 242,000 acres of productive farmland in more than a dozen states.”

According to the Land Report map, Gates’ swaths of farmland, amassed through front-company Cascade Investments, are located mainly near water and ports across 19 states.

Gates is also a founding member of an investor group (Leading Harvest), setting a sustainability standard for over 2 million farming acres in 22 states and another 2 million in 7 countries, according to the Land Report.

Furthermore, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (separate from Cascade Investments and Breakthrough Ventures) has a farmland initiative called Gates Ag One, based in St. Louis. According to the St. Louis Business Journal, its focus is research to help farms in low- and middle-income countries adapt to climate change by becoming “more productive, resilient and sustainable.”

The Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) investment fund recently changed its website, but the strategies for agriculture and food production are still clear when clicking through tabs. Here’s just the tip of the iceberg. BEV website screenshot by Sherry Bunting

Gates also chairs the investment fund called Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), mentioned in various ‘fake-meat’ and ‘fake-dairy’ articles published in Farmshine over the past three years.

The BEV fund is mentioned throughout Gates’ new book as a ‘philanthropic’ fund with a climate strategy. Digging into the website, one sees the fund’s climate investments described as “patient, risk-tolerant capital” that will recoup return on investment years down the road once the global supply chains, government policies, and other strategies move consumers toward the various sector outcomes the BEV billionaires are investing in.

The BEV investor list includes significant interests based in China; Democratic party candidates and/or donors like George Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg; big tech billionaires like Gates, along with Mark Zuckerburg, founder of Facebook, and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.

The two-pronged approach to animal protein in Gates’ book reflects the two-pronged investments of Gates, BEV, Leading Harvest and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. On the personal and fund investment side, Gates and friends have put billions of dollars into ‘replacement ag systems’ featuring fake-animal-protein for ‘rich’ countries, while on the foundation side, the focus is on research for efficient animal ag systems in poor countries.

In fact, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – which has endeared itself to Big Ag by supporting biotech research for developing countries — was among 11 top-level sponsors in the $100,000-plus donation category for the American Farm Bureau Federation’s virtual convention in January.

During the 2021 convention, Farm Bureau president Skippy Duvall and Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford — together — provided a joint keynote discussion under the ‘stronger together’ 2021. Ford spoke of Land O’Lakes’ 2020 partnership with Microsoft to build an “artificial intelligence” ag-tech platform to automatically gather data from farms and trade carbon credits. The discussion ended with a focus on climate-smart technology and a more “inclusive” advocacy platform less cluttered by production identity labels.

For his part, Duvall stated that, “There’s room in the marketplace for everyone, every type of production — organic, conventional, plant-based meat, whatever it might be — there’s enough room in the market for all of us,” he said. “We have to stop throwing ourselves under the bus and work together as one united family.”

This sentiment dovetails with the global food transformation agenda of companies and investors wanting to mix-match-and-blend in a way that melts-away protein identities in favor of planetary diet standards, labels and symbols. Walmart’s director of sustainability talked about this during a World Economic Forum virtual event reported in Farmshine in January, and it is showing up in Walmarts today with big name frozen entrées in lookalike packaging, featuring BE’F, CHICK’N and DAI’Y. How clever.

On the fake-animal-protein investments, Gates and friends are working with global mainline agriculture companies like Cargill, Tyson, ConAgra and ADM, as well as global food supply chains like PepsiCo, Nestle, Unilever, and Coca Cola, along with ‘replacement’ plant-based and cell-cultured fake-meat and fake-dairy manufacturers like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, Memphis Meats, BioPrint, and Perfect Day.

All of this ‘replacement’ or ‘alternative’ ag push is setting the stage for a massive land grab to meet the 30 by 30 executive order of President Biden that dovetails with United Nations goals to have 30% of U.S. and global lands in conservation protection by 2030. That would double the current 15%.

With billions in ‘patient capital’ invested, Gates and friends want to see U.S. consumers ‘herded’ toward the ‘herdless’ imposter-foods they’ve invested in.

The USDA-HHS Dietary Guidelines have the facilitating low-fat diets positioned and ready. The FDA Nutrition Innovation Strategy is a multi-year effort underway to modernize standards of identity and develop a universal ‘healthy’ symbol for ‘approved’ foods.

Meanwhile, Gates and friends are pushing for polices and pricing that shift diets more quickly from the ‘climate’ side. For example, wholesale boneless wing and tender prices, as well as beef, are rising rapidly (but not to producers). This effectively narrows the gap between real and fake to help with the transition. Even the dairy industry is moving to ‘dual purpose’ processing.

Digesting Gates’ book interviews, hearing him talk about carbon markets during a World Economic Forum Davos Agenda 21 livestream, and seeing the ‘who’s who’ board of the BEV investment fund – it is clear Gates and friends are politically well-positioned to push policies that can shift diets based on their investments.

They are also getting help from within the animal-sourced food industries to corral Gen Z as ‘agents of change’ that will embrace these China-sourced pea-protein concentrates and lab-created franken-foods as they scale up across household name brands. In its recent joint-venture announcement with Beyond Meat, PepsiCo admitted their alternative snack and beverage rollouts must be “effortless” so consumers don’t have to think about making the “right choices for the planet.”

Food transformation is unfolding rapidly as Big Ag, Big Food, Big Tech, Big Money players align with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and globalized supply chains.

To affirm the identity of real, local, U.S.-produced animal-sourced foods from farms will require a direct appeal to consumers and accountability for industry leaders and policymakers.

Overblown climate propaganda about dairy and livestock fuel policies that gradually undermine food production identity. Gates is not a food fortune-teller, but rather he is fixing to be a food fortune-maker believing he and his billionaire big tech cronies can ‘software program’ food and behavior to enrich their own outcomes.

We need to follow the money and wake up the public to see the garbage the elites are selling for what it really is. Some of us are ready to pick this food identity hill to die on.

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