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This chapter traces the evolution of philanthropic involvement in Global South agriculture from the ‘scientific philanthropy’of the Rockefeller Foundation during and after the ‘Green Revolution’era to the ‘capitalist philanthropy’(Morvaridi, 2012a), or ‘philanthrocapitalism’(see Edwards in Chapter 2), of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Specifically, it focuses on two research initiatives: the Golden Rice project and drought tolerant (or ‘water efficient’) maize research. Comparison of the ‘logic model’(Frumkin, 2006) informing these ventures highlights both disjunctures and continuities in terms of the theory of change and notions of scale and leverage that have informed their design. First, the belief in the inherent scalability of a solution based on genetics-led crop improvement remains unshaken, despite a professed shift in focus to the needs of smallholder farmers. Second, a theory of change combines the …