thank you before i open the floor for questions i just want to support what heather has just said because i work for first the institute for food development policy were started by frances moore to pay forty years ago she wrote diet for a small planet and in which she pointed out that we already have enough food to feed every man woman and child one and a half times over the problems hunger of hunger is not scarcity it's injustice that was true forty years ago it's still true today and food first has been able to carry this message and do the research around these issues for forty years thanks to its membership we receive almost no foundation funding we receive no government funding no corporate funding and yet for forty years we've been able to provide you with the in depth analysis regarding the root causes of hunger i think it's extremely important to support an organization like cia t j if they're going to have an independent stance in relation to the green revolution in relation to agra in relation to the gates foundation it's practically impossible to do this in any substantive way without the support of membership our membership organizations are the ones we can control they're the ones outside of the influence  philanthropy capitalism outside of the influence of the big corporations they're the ones who belong to you so please support c a g ha food first knows from experience this is the only way to keep an independent voice alive in times like today god i think the solutions we start from africa you've got a problem you've got too many people and we need to feed you know i think that we're going to get into all kinds of problems so i would just caution us outside help why we need quick fix technologies why we need increasing yield it becomes very very tricky and i think it's going to take us down a very dangerous path thank you conversations with individuals within the organization and i was actually hoping that i might join you in a protest in front of the gays foundation and i member of the seattle region grannies if anybody wants to protest in front of the gates foundation i'm sure we can arrange that sorry my question as a peace corps volunteer does anybody have quickly just as a short story or two of what you're going to say she's done on the ground maybe a program you've managed to start information you've given to farmers or women's groups or just anything that would help us really really understand thanks thank you let's take a question from here from the right yes i'm david i would now that was two thousand two thousand and three and up to now we are just using the same seeds we are not going to buy hybrids in the sho call ourselves the rural women's assembly the slogan of the rural women's assembly is we are the guardians of land life sea and lo and we're a movement in the region elizabeth this part that with some of the people sitting here we're a movement of farmers peasant women farm workers fishes and it's a movement where women share the knowledge so when we talking about the what do we do practically lots and lots of practical things that the women do around food sovereignity around seed saving many many different things but we also fight we also fight for women's access in control of the land because control and axes of the land for rural women is a real picky issue so how women can have their own land how they can control it and how they can use it for their own economic rights is a save water many many very different things that women can do so tonight there is not enough time to go into the practical programs that women all are involved in so the second small issue i want to talk on someone asked about socialism contra member which is so i cannot talk for the whole region and i certainly think none of us can talk for the whole of africa but  about south africa so in south africa we believe that change is important we believe that it is the system of inequality a system that has been that exists that favors the rich that favors the powerful and that favors a small elite the one percent that's creating the problems in the world and i don't know what you want to call it but we believe that system that favors the one percent must change so that everybody the hundred percent can have what is rightfully ours and we can change in the wealth of the world so whatever system you w that's what we want to see must happen i spent some time with my grandmother and i was speaking about corruption and he said in africa we don't have a ward called corruption was that i would like that you have a bad person or a good person and most of these things polices operations to the detriment of our people yes i can fight with the enemy within because we know how we can hold them to ransom remember in january two thousand and twelve we held our government when they tried to increase of four and everybody went  grounder a baskin robbins and they are going the opposite direction of corporate america the second thing i would like to mention is n c r s website that talks about so conservation and biodiversity thank you i wanted to address one of the questions regarding whether the group had met with the gates foundation and we should say that watch attempted to arrange a meeting between our african partners and gates foundation a high level meeting because quite frankly we have some high level partners those of you who may have been may be familiar with the struggles for food sovereignty and food justice and environmental justice around the world probably recognize our guests there are internationally prominent in these struggles so we tried to have a substantive meeting with the gates foundation we basically were unsuccessful they kept they bumped us down and we couldn't meet with bill gates we couldn't meet with the heads of the programs and so we were able to arrange a meeting between people who could speak of substantive issues so basically we failed to do that so maybe it's some other time it might be able to happen but quite frankly  there just weren't conditions for a meeting this time around  they there i highly recommend and i kind of regret that we don't have time but that you go to the foundation headquarters and you go to the visitor center because it is i mean you got to go it's just a  study in how the capitalism works is just you just have to you have to experience it and there's an opportunity to engage mary and to have the opportunity to go and there's opportunity to ask questions right if i should let you tell a story but she was saying that she asked well if i leave a question well bill gates actually read it and he only looks at the questions once a year apparently so it's not a very effective i mean that's not the way so in general i would say that go watch has  we have had some meetings that others have a range that we have participated in we felt you know that it's it's good for us to have some interaction with the foundation that's here but they have been extremely  patronizing to us as well and so what food sovereignty is about when we've been able to have any sort of engagement with them whatsoever it's been very unproductive so to this point we don't really see that as a primary strategy but we do think it's important to you know show up at the foundation from time to time and we've tried to deliver a letter that people had signed from all over the world they wouldn't take it as it was a proper protocol you know we just kind of come up against the institution as a kind of faceless nameless place that we're not able to interact with very well so that's also been our experience up to this point hi my name is matthew first of all thank you for everyone on stage and everyone out here very much for being here today it's kind of been touched upon briefly but i want to see what's the state of indigenous seed banks in africa you there on the continent wide basis or a country by country basis  if that is measurable are there any current outreach efforts to establish more indigenous seed banks in reaction to i am against travis and two thousand and nine i was fortunate enough to travel to kenya and do research on the resistance to the green revolution the now africa where i had the pleasure of meeting daniel and i met with a lot of great organizations that were resisting the green revolution and building alternatives to the green revolution but one of the things i notice is a lot of them were mentioning the gates foundation and the influence of the gates foundation in their work and when i asked about why that was across the board the organization directors answered that they were afraid to they were afraid to get on the bad side of the gates foundation because it would impact the potential for further funding and i'm wondering if that culture still exists and how it impacts i just one i have a question of how are you dressing these with your leaders in africa i'm from kenya and i i was there for two months and my mom was really concerned in regards to if anybody from kenya they remember the sugar cane we used to eat and the cars and things have changed so with all these new a great culture of bill gates and we have a but i didn't at the time actually i didn't know but i all i saw grown in kenya these rice cheaper than that and it's coming from china so all these issues importing and exporting over the lead i know that how are you addressing that with your leaders because your leaders are the ones that are opening these gates to their corporates coming into the country and in reality you know doing some farming or whatever issues they're bringing in the other thing is you know in somalia the same thing is happening i think with the seas you hear about these pirates and all that is polluting the sea and that's what people are getting at so in reality bill gates or any other corporate from the western is promoting another for the war in africa or as you how we used to generate my school fees so in reality what they're saying is whatever you inherited you cannot pass it to your grandkids and you know that we are bringing new education to you and parents who don't speak english or don't understand that culture you know i don't understand how they're going to do that but anyway thank you thank you for those questions that people and the whole push to green revolution is or saw change in the way people are eating and i don't know what it is with the african genetic makeup we tend and we have to live with that reality but it's part of a strategy the problem is is you know a particular focus on it for getting the bigger context so it's should be part of the bigger advocacy strategy think you think you thank you  the organizing for this event happened over the vision for it and the actual organizing has taken several years and it's just it's a great sense of accomplishment that it was so successful and that we all were able to learn so much these really important organizers who have come so far so we need to wrap up so that they can get some rest before our final day of meetings as part of the summit tomorrow and i know you all need to get home