Why current industrial GM crops are bad for africa's agriculture

A week ago, I traveled to my native village in the Eastern Uganda sub-region of Teso. It was an unplanned trip that, coming in the middle of my busiest academic schedules, was obviously ‘forced’, I might say, by unavoidable circumstances. But what a trip!

If you have a clue about traveling in Africa, particularly to and in the rural places, then you have an idea how hectic that can be. The state of the murram roads either half of the wet and dry seasons, means you have to contend with dust clouds– in the dry season- and mud lakes – in the wet season, none of which you want to experience until you must.

Well, this time was/is right in the middle of the wet season, with lots of rains, so I had to contend with muddy lakes along the pot and patch holes of broken roads. Not to the best of my taste of course, but as they say, what is foe to the city dweller is friend to the rural folk. Rain certainly is one of that.

In the city, rains get to affect work. Vending is brought to a standing still, selling and buying is disrupted and people withdraw in doors, but in the rural villages, it gets to effect work, people come outdoors, as husbands and wives, and children take to the gardens to open land and plant seed. The next meal depends on that.

To cut the long story short, the travel, despite, the inconvenience was a welcome break from all the buzz and fizz of city life. Above else however – and the inspiration for this post-the 12 hours I spent there, the sight of freshly opened crop fields, scenes of children broadcasting millet seeds as fathers and mothers buried them with soil, and finally conversations with some of them, moved me to some reflections.

Now, just so you know, even as a child, I did not grow in the village and neither have I engaged in active agricultural production, still, of the little I have grown to know about Africa’s rural life –very much agricultural dependent- following partly from the frequent family visits to the village as a child, and the tale tell evenings with grannies, is that whereas you are sure to find some agricultural resource lacking here and there, seed is the exception.

It is well documented, the fact, that the solid foundation of Africa’s agriculture, depended on for generations by individual households, from the hunter-gatherer days until now, has been the ‘indigenous seed and its preservation’, as a famine reserve and a varied lot for replanting.

Suffice to say that this ‘seed’ and its ‘preservation psych’ is today threatened by global seed commodification and relentless political and moneyed efforts in the latest wave of philanthropy sweeping across the continent promoting the adoption of Genetically Modified Organisms as Africa’s food and agriculture future.

By Lindsay Eyink from San Francisco, CA, USA - Research field, CC BY 2.0, Link

But is it? For starters, I for one believe that the progress in our understanding of how organisms function at the physiological, biochemical and molecular levels, especially in regard to cross-gene transfer offers the most exciting possibility for the resolution of our health care needs. However when it comes to agriculture, I think that to be a different case, particularly in regard to Africa.

I am, for the record, opposed to the release, to agricultural soils, of all genetically modified seeds. It is a fundamental objection grounded on my conviction that there so many fatal unreliable and unpredictable risks. The Typical African farmer asks some of the questions that here below, i trouble to answer following from my own knowledge and convictions insofar as GMO's are concerned.

1. Will not GMO’s lead to ‘genetic erosion’ by narrowing the indigenous genetic base of Africa’s agriculture?
   
   Africa’s agriculture, I am adamant, does not need genetically modified seeds. I am no academic or even practicing scientist, but I don’t think I need to be one to see through the scientific and occupational risks of GMO’s for Africa.
   
   For thousands of years, Africa has, from native grasses of the savannas, successfully domesticated several food crops, including among others, millet, sorghum, rice - staple cereals and foods that have endured for millennia so much that, Africa compared to other continents, remains with the richest diversity of native cereals.
   
   By Pete Lewis/Department for International Development, CC BY 2.0, Link
   
   That said, how do you explain the requirement for genetically modified seeds in a continent with such a tremendous agro-biodiversity? A very important question a typical African asks is: will not GMO’s lead to ‘genetic erosion’ by narrowing the indigenous genetic base of Africa’s agriculture?
   
   This question, together with the answer in the affirmative, has been answered by several studies, including a 2006 village level study in Mali which found that, once introduced, hybrid sorghum led to the disappearance of three locally important native varieties of Sorghum. It was the same in the Philippines. There, where previously, 2500 showcased rice varieties thrived, only eight remain to dominate.
   
   With the already changing environments and climate, this reduced diversity means a weak adaptation. And that comes with monumental crop production risks. A classic example back in time, when this lack of genetic diversity led to a major agricultural catastrophe, was the potato famine – Irish Lumper - that ravaged Ireland in the period between 1845 and 1852 and left over a million dead and more migrated.
   
   That time, Ireland that was largely dependent on potatoes for feeding its people, cultivated a type not grown from seeds but from sections taken off parent potatoes.
   
   Thus all their potatoes were largely clones of their parents, containing identical genetic builds.

   
   When these were attacked by the invasive P. infestans, the entire potato population was wiped out.
   
   Genetically Identical Population
   However had Ireland cultivated a a more genetically diverse potato population (below), many would have had the chance to survive the destructive P. Infestans. .
   Genetically diverse population
   
   GMO’s increase that likelihood. Imagine the tragedy, if this were to befall Africa today, with her poor healthcare and humanitarian response capacities!
   
   Overall, the tremendous agro-biodiversity of Africa’s indigenous crops remains the best safe-guard for solving her food production challenges in the face of climate change. That should not be endangered. GMO’s for me, must be engineered in such a manner as minimizes their influence on biodiversity,

2. Will not this control of seeds threaten the enduring foundation of farmer autonomy and livelihood?
   
   And then, like I said at the beginning, the solid foundation of Africa’s agriculture, depended on for generations by individual households, from the hunter-gatherer days until now, has been the ‘indigenous seed and its preservation’, as a famine reserve as well as lot for replanting. Even now, the practice still persists, with majority households still in the practice of storing seed in granaries. In the Teso sub-region where I come from, our people have traditionally depended on granaries.
   
   A typical granary structure is in the form of a wickerwork basket (made of either bamboo, reeds, elephant grass etc) invariably plastered both on the outside and also at the inside with cow dung, either used alone or mixed with wood ashes or black swamp soil. The basket is then anchored above the ground, supported with poles/tree stumps or large stones.
   
   Inside this granary, it is for example possible to keep unthreshed heads of finger millet for even 10 years without damage.
   
   
   By Erinamukuta, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
   
   Even today, you will find at least two granaries in every village homestead where finger millet, or sorghum or groundnuts etc. are stored to be used for planting in the next season. It is an age old practice following from which African farmers have retained control of seed, autonomy of production and livelihood.
   
   GMO seeds are premised on the opposite. Unlike traditional African seed, genetically modified seeds cannot be replanted. Following what are christened Terminator and Traitor technologies, These seeds are modified in such a manner that plants that they grow into, produce sterile seeds, those imbued with a suicide sequence of exotic genes that are eventually triggered by an anti-biotic and rendered infertile in the next generation and as such, cannot germinate the following season or ever at all.
   
   Secondly, ‘Traitor’ GMO seeds produce crops that have to be sprayed with chemicals if they are to grow. These seeds contain a gene which ultimately inhibits germination by stopping the seeds from producing ACOX, that enzyme required for successful germination, and without which the seeds will not germinate or even if they do, the seedling shortly die
   
   What these two scenarios mean is that once adopted, farmers will have to enter contracts or technology agreements with seed companies in regard to acquiring seeds for planting every year as well as for chemicals for enabling their growth.
   
   Essentially, the companies assume control and regulation of seeds and by extension, production, which begs the question: will not this control of seeds and chemicals by transnational company threaten the enduring foundation of African farmer autonomy and livelihood? It would, no question about that.
   
   The commercialization of such seeds and requisite chemicals without which they cannot germinate, would mean enchaining African farmers in an expensive seed, chemical and intellectual property web, something akin to bioserfdom or seed oligopoly.
   
   Like I have already noted, nearly all African farmers –majority small holders- depend on farm saved seeds. To remove them from this age-old practice of plant breeding, saving and replanting, through GMO sterilized seeds enchains them to utter dependency and not only enslaves them financially but also nutritionally, not to mention the rebound on the first fear I have already mentioned- the disastrous narrowing of the genetic pool on which African farmers currently depend on for food security.
   
   There is not, in a word, any agronomic advantage to these terminator and Traitor seeds, besides exclusively benefiting transnational gene giants like Mosanto
   
   Unless GMO seeds can be engineered in such a manner as decentralizes their adoption and adaptation by farmers instead of narrowing creation and regulation to transnational companies, they will remain suspect as weapons for disguised agro-colonialism!

3. How do GMO’s, customized for industrial agriculture systems, benefit Africa’s majority small holders?
   
   80% of Africa’s population is small scale farmers with less than 3 acres of land. Technologies sensitive to the perpetuation of this, in such a manner as enables African farmers to diversity as well as to intensify on-farm enterprises, are what currently benefits the typical African farmer.
   
   Genetically modified seeds, largely customized for commercial agriculture are therefore not that urgently needed in Africa, at least not yet, if anything, they perpetuate monocropping, a practice which from the African context is unfavorable due to land fragmentation, a result of Africa’s land tenure system and cultural heritages.
   
   Scientific agriculture focused research should, if it genuinely hopes to help Africa’s food production challenges, and in deed that of the larger developing world, instead focus on building on the peasant production systems already in practice. It should prioritize the perpetuation rather than the elimination of the indigenous seed, anything short of that falls right into the machination of moneyed global advocacy for domination.

4. Will GMO’s reduce hunger in Africa?
   
   Home to 18 of the world’s poorest countries by GDP per capita, the war on want in Africa has now been constructed in such a manner as to give the impression that GMO’s are the solution. Is it true? Well, first things first: Africa’s problems are a multiplicity of political and economic failures; problems such as hunger are only symptoms of the greater political, policy, and structural economic loopholes thanks, in large part to World bank and IMF structural adjustment programs started way back in the 80 and 90s, exacerbated now by the corruption, poor governance, poor land utilization and poor land tenure systems, civil conflicts, poor infrastructure and diseases among others
   
   IMF and World bank Structural adjustments programs (SAP's) particularly eroded African agriculture following bad policies imposed on African countries. Systematically, they set a self –sufficient food producing Africa on a trajectory towards import and food aid dependence, the cardinal reasons for its vulnerability to hunger today. From a net food exporter between the years 1966 and 1970 of an average 1.3 million tonnes of annual food exports according to BBC analysts, Martin Plaut, Africa is today an import and food aid importer.
   
   IMF and Worl bank policies made sure that African governments had to cut subsidies to small scale farmers, eliminate tariffs and price controls, sell off silo/granary stored food/grain reserves (which mitigated hunger in case of drought and availed seed for replanting), increase cash crop raw material exports to the West and allow advanced foreign imports from Europe and the US to flood and overwhelm local markets.
   
   If only Donor governments can decisively move away from the free-market conditionality they give, and support African governments' intervention in markets; if only food production interventions from both technological and scientific positions can prioritize Africa's small holders, pastoralists and vulnerable groups, among other organizational corrections, Africa's hunger problem will not be the urgent issue it is today. Conspicuously, in none of these key interventions do i find GMO's necessary.

5. Are not genetically modified foods a threat to human life?

The much I know is that the impacts of genetically modified foods on human health are still unknown. Independent studies on the same are still very scarce.

One thing though is clear: the risks are real. One can only shudder to think how devastating they would be to Africa, given its poor health care and disease emergency response capacity.

Conclusion

Where Genetically modified seeds are concerned, and given her poor disaster response capacity, lack of resources for effective bio-safety measures and general public/farmer awareness about genetically modified crops, African governments should heed the advice of the 'precautionary principle', namely, not to adopt/proceed with GMO's without certainty for human and environmental health.

In my country Uganda where the GMO bill is still being debated in parliament, as indeed in other African counties, the important things is to declare, for now, a moratorium on the introduction and commercialization of genetically modified crops until such a time when sufficient research guarantees are available on different environmental, socio-economic and agronomic contentions, and the masses following extensive consultations, have been made aware.

Meanwhile, African governments should enhance and increase investment on farmer-driven research focusing on specific existent local problems affecting their farming communities.

Resources

1. Genetically Modified Crop Map for Africa