Is there a deliberate agenda by the world elites to control birth rates and reduce the population through the distribution of infected or modified resources under the guise of humanitarian aid? No, that's not true: Africans themselves are at the forefront of promoting GMO and gene-edited crop research programs and Europe is the only region expected to lose population by 2050.
The claim about the depopulation program appeared in a TikTok video no longer available (archived here) from @verteneverte on May 2, 2023, under the title "Full control over the humankind." It opened:
The world's elite has plans to reduce the population to 500 million people.
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken Thu July 20 09:23:41 2023 CET)
There is currently no coordinated global effort to halt or reverse human population growth. According to the United Nations Population Fund, only one region of the world is expected to experience a decline in population in the near future (between 2022 and 2050) and that's Europe, with an anticipated minus-7 percent growth. Other regions such as Central, South and Southeast Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as North America, are projected to continue growing, though they are expected to reach their peak sizes before the year 2100.
The nonpartisan, nonprofit Genetic Literacy Project dismisses the notion of Western billionaires trying to diminish the populations in Africa, Asia or Latin America by controlling their food supply due to the significant population growth in these regions.
The TikTok video also claimed that genetically modified foods are intended to kill people. There are several popular claims about "world elites" using genetically modified organism (GMO) seeds, or vaccines with the aim of depopulating the planet.
In reality, Africans themselves are at the forefront of promoting GMO and gene-edited crop research programs on the continent. Institutions like the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and National Biosafety Management Agency, along with the parliaments of, for instance, Ghana, actively support crop biotechnology, challenging the assumption that Africans are unable to conduct research in this field.
