Opinion: Genetically Modified Crops in Africa - Hope, Hype and Hubris

By Glenn Ashton

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, November 25, 2003 (ENS) - Despite the increased area dedicated to growing genetically modified organisms as food crops in South Africa, a veil of secrecy remains in place.

The Department of Agriculture refuses to allow public oversight, citing commercial confidentiality agreements with corporations pushing the technology. The department has even gone so far as to use opponents of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a reason to keep the locations of GM crops secret, saying that anti-GM campaigners would destroy GM crops if the locations were divulged.

These extraordinary claims are refuted by the fact that many of those opposed to genetic modification know the locations of numerous sites where these crops have been grown or now are being grown and have not engaged in direct action against these crops at any time.

Instead opponents of biotechnology are far more interested in enabling independent monitoring and oversight of these crops in order that the claims made by promoters of the technology can be verified.

In May of this year the government held a so-called GMO Conference to bring all of those involved in the debate together to discuss the issue. At the conclusion of this conference a transparent review of the GMO Act, the relevant legislation that has been shown to be seriously deficient, was promised.

Genetically modified corn, or maize, designed by Monsanto (Photo courtesy Monsanto)

Recently, the biggest public debate in the world over the use of GMOs was carried out in the United Kingdom. Even though much criticism has been leveled at those directing the debate as having inordinately close ties to industry, a clear message emerged that the public does not welcome GM crops and food.

Importantly, the more the public is informed about the facts behind biotechnology, the more distrust they have of it.

The overwhelming majority of UK and international consumers would like to see GMO products labeled properly. If an alternative were offered, consumers would choose non-GMO produce.

A group of 114 industry lobbyists responded to the negative outcome of the UK debate with outrage, but they were soon silenced by a response from over 600 independent scientists who rejected the emotional response of industry aligned interest groups.

More important for Africa is the revelation that even with the strong pro-GMO bias amongst the UK panelists, two of three crops under examination were found to have significant negative environmental effects.

Meanwhile, Africa is being used as the justification for the technology with U.S. insistence that only by using GM crops will we be able to feed our burgeoning population.

A South African farmer protests against planting genetically modified crops. (Photo from "Farmer’s Weekly," September 20, 2002, courtesy BioWatch South Africa)

Due to the sophistication and repetitiveness of the public relations campaign, significant inroads into Africa have been made by lobbying key politicians, funding political parties, and by generally greasing the wheels to gain permission for the introduction of these products. Similar campaigns are also mounted in an attempt to sway public opinion.

After half a decade of hype, reality is starting to bite back. Besides the uncomfortable outcome of the UK public debate, several independent studies have shown that the present emphasis on high technology solutions is insufficient. It is far more important to first address the systematic problems inherent to African agricultural production.

In a comprehensive study of the technology, Aaron De Grassi, an agricultural researcher working for the Third World Network, looked at claims made by promoters of GMOs in Africa.

In the first analysis he examined the extravagant claims made by Dr. Florence Wambugu, founder of A Harvest Biotech Foundation International in Kenya, that her sweet potatoes, engineered to create virus resistance, were a great success.

De Grassi estimated that funding of at least US$6 million has been granted to Wambugu and others from Monsanto, the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development. At least 18 university graduates have been engaged in the research, most of whom were PhDs, a rarity in Africa. All of this research, driven not by farmers' needs but by U.S. interests and by scientific hubris for public relations purposes, has resulted in a claimed project yield increase of 18 percent, in potatoes genetically engineered from an unpopular East African eating variety.

Neither independent studies nor peer reviewed studies have yet emerged from this expensive and time consuming investment. If a peer reviewed success story had emerged, we would have heard all about it.

The promotional spin, hubris and hype related to this project have been completely over the top. A good example is that of well known pro-GM pundit, C.S. Prakash, professor in plant molecular genetics and director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research at Tuskegee University in the United States. He recently touted the wonderful results of the sweet potato project without examining all the relevant information about the trials.

As the Kenyan GM sweet potato project was taking place, Ugandan plant breeders have quietly used conventional breeding - not genetic engineering - to increase virus resistance in sweet potatoes. They used a popular eating variety and in a short time, using a fraction of the resources, increased the yield of these potatoes by almost 100 percent.

So what we see here is a rush toward a sexy new technology with corporations betting on GMO as the way to go, putting massive resources in place in order to gain public relations advantage while drawing human and financial resources away from far more suitable technologies.

In South Africa's benchmark Makatini Flats GM cotton growing project, 70 percent of the cotton contains a pest resistant gene derived from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). De Grassi exposed the hype and bluster behind this internationally touted project. Here, so-called poor farmers are supposedly benefiting from the use of insect resistant GM cotton, and extravagant claims have been made about the project's success.

Genetically modified cotton engineered to be insect resistant (Photo courtesy Monsanto)

CropGen, a pro-GM lobby group, put the gain in profits at $113 per hectare. Monsanto claimed that farmers gain $90. ISAAA says farmers gained an extra $50 per hectare, university researchers put the gain at $35 per hectare. De Grassi's survey team found farmers gained $18 per hectare in the second year, but in the first year those who did not use GM cotton were better off than those who did.

Similarly, ISAAA implied that genetically modified cotton was being grown over 100,000 hectares by smallholder farmers, fudging figures from South Africa as a whole. Another EU industry group claimed 5,000 hectares, while the actual area is more like 3,000 hectares planted to Bt cotton, according to De Grassi.

The very same farmers who are supposed to have benefited from this technology have sunk even more deeply into debt. In 1998, before GM cotton arrived, farmers in the irrigation area carried about R16 million of debt. Over the next two years this debt burden grew over R8 million more as farmers engaged in farming this high risk, high cost crop were affected by floods and other natural damage. Prices for cotton also fell.

So much for helping small farmers. The real beneficiaries remain the seed companies. The farmers and their state loans remain red ink on South Africa's debit sheet.

The promoters of biotechnology have failed to explain the environmental implications of GM technology to these small farmers, nor are the required refuges - a percentage of the GM crop area seeded with conventional crops - understood, enforced or monitored in any meaningful way.

This will lead to a rapid build up in resistance among target insects. Monsanto is already running trials on newer, more potent, less tested GM cotton varieties, with more complex and unpredictable genetic alterations to counter the emerging threat of insect resistance.

The claim that we need GM crops to feed Africa is possibly the most cynical lie that has been perpetrated by an industry already deeply mired in controversy. Since the introduction of this technology into South Africa, more than 58,000 cotton workers have lost their jobs as farmers adopted less labor intensive farming methods such as insect resistant cotton. Hunger problems have become worse than ever for these people and many more South Africans as well.

Instead of dealing with the real challenges of food security facing Africa, GMOs have distracted attention and diverted resources from integrated solutions that would offer superior advantages.

Extension services are one of the most urgently needed interventions in African agriculture, yet are under pressure everywhere from structural adjustment programs forced on Africa by those same governments that push GM technology. This allows a significant opportunity for the cynical introduction of costly corporate extension packages.

What is really needed is more state extension officers to address soil fertility and erosion, water conservation, storage, and infrastructure problems. Each of these basic considerations is far more important than the adoption of GM crops.

This is an overt attempt to relegate Africa into the position of a food dependent vassal continent, reliant on the faux philanthropic image projected by America and its big biotech muscle men. Instead of a program to build the capacity of Africa that will enable it to become secure in its own food production, a blind faith in genetic hokery-pokery, the new snake oil is forcefully pitched.

The relationship between the U.S. government and industry has become a continuum under the Bush regime and then, to add insult to injury, the South African government continues to undemocratically force GMOs on us as consumers, while we similtaneously subsidize their introduction through our taxes at the cost of urgently needed rural infrastructural reform.

The United States has stated its wish to feed the world - with subsidized and unwelcome products. It is a tragedy of immense proportions that our African leaders have allowed themselves to have been so thoroughly misinformed by an industry that is engaged in a battle to secure control of global agriculture wherever possible. Big Biotech cares not a jot about the food security of Africans. All that interests these people is the corporate bottom line.

{Glenn Ashton is the coordinator of the South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering, SAFeAGE, a network of individuals, families and more than 130 organizations representing over 250,000 South Africans opposed to the import, export and growing of GM crops and food until their safety and desirability has been proven.}