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For Immediate Release
August, 28 2012, 01:15pm EDT
Contact:
Anna Ghosh, (415) 293-9905, aghosh(at)fwwatch(dot)org
Adam Mason, (515) 282-0484, adam(at)iowacci(dot)org
Rastetter Tried to Use Taxpayer Funding for Tanzanian Land Grab
Newly Released USDA Documents Reveal AgriSol Sought International Food Aid Funds
DES MOINES, Iowa
Just days after the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board refused to investigate Iowa Regent Bruce Rastetter for conflict of interest violations, newly released documents reveal that he attempted to use a partnership with Iowa State University (ISU) to get U.S. government funding to establish his controversial agribusiness project in Tanzania.
Working with ISU faculty, Rastetter's company AgriSol applied in 2011 for more than $7 million in taxpayer dollars as part of an international food aid program run by the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA).
"The Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board may not get it, but it's clear that Rastetter has tried to pull every string he can to get his corporate land grab off the ground," says Lori Nelson, a CCI Board Member from Bayard, Iowa. "It's outrageous that he tried using the good name of ISU to get U.S. taxpayers to pay his start-up costs."
The $7 million AgriSol sought from the USDA program would be in exchange for supplies of food aid, which AgriSol or its affiliate would sell in Tanzania. The AgriSol application explains that the proceeds from the food sales would help with infrastructure and start-up costs for an industrial agribusiness project in Tanzania, which could displace thousands of refugees.
Emails obtained by Food & Water Watch through the Freedom of Information Act show that some inside USDA were concerned about the application: "In fact it reads very much like an investment prospectus, as you can imagine," said one email by an official of USDA's Foreign Agriculture Service.
The USDA ultimately denied AgriSol's application for funding in fiscal year 2012.
Presenting the project as a humanitarian effort to develop agriculture in Tanzania, documents obtained by Food & Water Watch show that AgriSol promoted the involvement of ISU in the application and involved ISU agronomy Professor Mark Westgate in --even though ISU had already officially backed out of the USDA application process in mid-September 2011, citing potential conflict of interest concerns with Rastetter. Professor Westgate personally met with the USDA on AgriSol's behalf then helped submit the USDA application, using his official ISU email address.
"It's bad enough that an Iowa Regent keeps trying to drag ISU into his business enterprises," Nelson said. "But now, even though Rastetter describes himself as a self-reliant farmer, these documents show that he wanted U.S. taxpayers and poor Tanzanians to foot the bill for setting up his profit-making enterprise."
"This latest revelation is just one more reason it's time for Rastetter to be held accountable," said Matt Ohloff, Iowa organizer for Food & Water Watch. "CCI and Food & Water Watch members will continue to call for Rastetter to resign from the Board of Regents."
Copies of select documents obtained from the USDA can be found here: https://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/FWWFOIAUSDARastetter.pdf. For access to additional documents obtained by Food & Water Watch's Freedom of Information Act request, see contact information below.
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement is a group of everyday people who talk, act and get things done on issues that matter most. With thousands of members from all walks of life -- urban and rural, black and white, immigrants and lifelong Iowans -- CCI has been tackling tough issues and getting things done for more than 35 years. www.iowacci.org
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
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"This is the time to direct our energies and efforts toward preparedness and readiness, particularly to protect our most vulnerable citizens from the impact of extreme heat," said one expert.
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With scientists pointing to a number of weather patterns this year that have already signified that the El Niño Southern Oscillation may amplify planetary heating in the coming months, one heat and public health expert said Monday that officials must take advantage of the time they have now to prepare their communities for potential extreme heat events in the United States and around the world.
"We will likely see a significant impact from El Niño in the 2023 heat season," said Ashley Ward, a senior policy associate at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. "While El Niño is still forming this year, we need to prepare for the 2024 heat season to likely be worse."
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As climate researcher Leon Simons said last week regarding current ocean warming trends, scientists are currently observing heat patterns that look "very much like the 1997 and 2015 early stages of a Super El Niño," which is marked by very high temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator.
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Ward called on officials at the state and local level to take the next several weeks to "develop response plans for periods of extreme heat that address how to reach both urban and rural populations."
"This is the time to direct our energies and efforts toward preparedness and readiness, particularly to protect our most vulnerable citizens from the impact of extreme heat," said Ward.
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Temperature records were broken in Vietnam and Laos last week, with the northern district of Tuong Duong recording a high of 111.6°F. Record-shattering heat in the Pacific Northwest was linked to hundreds of deaths in 2021, and more than 1,000 people died in Western Europe last summer of heat-related causes.
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May 15, 2023
More than 1,000 scientists and academics in over 21 countries
engaged in nonviolent protest last week under the banner of Scientist Rebellion to demand a just and equitable end to the fossil fuel era.
At least 19 of the participating scientists were arrested in actions linked to the group's "The Science Is Clear" campaign from May 7-13, organizers said at a Monday press conference. The group believes that researchers must move from informing to advocating in the wake of decades of fossil fuel industry disinformation about the climate crisis and the downplaying or ignoring of their warnings by governments and media organizations.
"It's urgent that scientists come out of their laboratories to counter the lies," Laurent Husson, a French geoscientist from ISTerre, said.
"Experts on tropical rainforests told me privately that they think the Amazon has already passed its tipping point. Let that sink in. The world needs to know."
Participating scientists in Africa, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America organized more than 30 discrete events during May's spate of actions. Scientific Rebellion is concerned that climate policy is not in line with official warnings like the final Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of the decade, released earlier this year, which called for "rapid and deep and, in most cases, immediate" reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in its "Summary for Policymakers."
However, some scientist-activists say that what researchers discuss internally is even more alarming.
"I was just at a NASA team meeting for three days in D.C.," Peter Kalmus tweeted Wednesday. "The scientific findings are so fucked up. Experts on tropical rainforests told me privately that they think the Amazon has already passed its tipping point. Let that sink in. The world needs to know."
\u201cA few personal notes:\nI was just at a NASA team meeting for 3 days in DC. The scientific findings are so fucked up. Experts on tropical rainforests told me privately that they think the Amazon has already passed its tipping point. Let that sink in. The world needs to know\u201d— Dr Peter Kalmus (@Dr Peter Kalmus) 1683778342
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Local actions also had independent demands in line with these goals. For example, Rose Abramoff—a U.S.-based scientist and IPCC reviewer—helped disrupt a joint session of the Massachusetts Legislature Wednesday with the demands that Massachusetts ban all new fossil fuel infrastructure and fund a just transition to renewable energy. The activists, who also included members of Extinction Rebellion, occupied the House Gallery for six hours before they were arrested.
\u201cYesterday @XRBoston @SRTurtleIsland sent a strong message to MA reps: #TheScienceIsClear Ban new fossil fuel infrastructure to keep the planet habitable\n\nWe interrupted a joint session to deliver our demands & occupied the state house for 6 hours until arrest. 1/4\u201d— Rose Abramoff (@Rose Abramoff) 1683815371
Abramoff said at the press conference that she joined Scientific Rebellion when the data turned up by her field work grew too alarming.
"This can't be my job to just calmly document destruction without doing anything to prevent it," she said.
She has now been arrested six times including Wednesday. And while she was fired from one job, she remains employed, housed, and healthy with a clean record.
"I think more scientists and other people with privilege should be taking these measures," she said.
Janine O'Keefe, an engineer and economist, said she was treated with much more respect by police when she protested in a lab coat compared with when she didn't, and was often not arrested at all.
"I implore you to find the courage to go against the silence," she said.
IPCC author Julia Steinberger also said she felt activism was part of a scientist's duty.
"It is us doing our jobs and holding our government to account on the commitments they have made to protect us."
"It is us doing our jobs and holding our government to account on the commitments they have made to protect us," Steinberger said.
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\u201cBREAKING: The blockade has ended with no activists being arrested.\u201d— Scientist Rebellion (@Scientist Rebellion) 1684014423
In France, meanwhile, police arrested 18 activists including five scientists for blocking a bridge in the Port of Le Havre Friday, near where TotalEnergies is building a floating methane terminal for imported liquefied natural gas.
\u201c18 activists incl. at last 5 members of @SciRebFr are still in preventive jail for blocking the bridge next to the future platform of the liquefied gas project of @TotalEnergies. #TheScienceIsClear, this project is another acceleration pedal towards climate hell. Solidarity. \u270a\u201d— Scientist Rebellion (@Scientist Rebellion) 1683987502
"We've been trying to show people that gas is still a fossil fuel," Husson said at the press conference.
Husson said the activists spent time in jail before being released, though three of them are being charged.
Scientific Rebellion argues that participants in the Global North have more responsibility to carry out civil disobedience and risk arrest because their countries have contributed more to emissions historically and because they have greater privilege and protection under the law.
However, that doesn't mean that scientists from the Global South aren't making their voices heard. Around 200 scientists in Africa participated in protests throughout the week, including in Congo, where University of Kinshasa researcher Gérardine Deade Tanakula said she knew colleagues who had lost loved ones in extreme weather events.
\u201cIn Kinshasa, scientists from @RebellionDrc organised a mobilisation action occupying the campus of @Unikinrdc to discuss and confront scientists and students from different departments about the climate and ecological crises and the current global campaign #TheScienceIsClear \ud83d\udd25\u270a\u201d— Scientist Rebellion (@Scientist Rebellion) 1684002524
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Two members of U.S. Congressman Gerry Connolly's staff were hospitalized Monday after a man armed with a baseball bat attacked them in the Virginia Democrat's district office in Fairfax.
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While the motive of Monday's assault is not yet clear, it came amid increasingly violent rhetoric and threats targeting Democratic members of Congress and people close to them. Last October, a far-right conspiracy theorist broke into the San Francisco home of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and brutally attacked her octagenarian husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer.
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