The ideology of innovation: philanthropy and racial capitalism in global food governance

Abstract

The converging crises of growing food insecurity and climate change have produced a global struggle to govern food systems. While a range of actors promote innovation as a solution to transform food systems, Bill Gates has leveraged his vast philanthropic funding to advocate for a particular vision of technology-driven innovation led by the private sector. This article elaborates Gates' ‘ideology of innovation' and analyzes its continuities with an earlier ideology developed to legitimize racial capitalism-improvement. In doing so, it reveals how Gates’ ideology serves to reproduce racialized regimes of ownership and relations of dependence in the information economy.