The politics of biotechnology (e.g. GM food crops) in Africa is as thorny as the savannah acacias according to Roger Kalla who has contributed the following:
Kenyan officials have put off approving the field testing of a genetically modified virus resistant cassava.
Cassava is a staple crop for 600 million people in Africa and Latin America.
A hardy plant, cassava withstands droughts, while providing protein, minerals (iron and calcium) and vitamins (A and C). Cassava originated in tropical America and is now grown in some of the poorest parts of Africa and Asia.
Cassava is a staple food for 70 percent of the population of some poor sub-saharan countries, so deterioration of this crop has had a serious impact on food security in the region.
Famine has already been reported. The major constraint reported seems to be severe cassava mosaic disease. Yield loss of cassava due to virus is valued at $US 2 billion each year in Africa. Currently, various stains of the viruses have sprung up causing a severe form of the disease (Uganda, Western Kenya, Western Tanzania, D R. Congo).
Reduced cassava harvests have dramatically increased the market price of leaves and roots, so that many people can no longer afford what was their main calorie source. This has been further exacerbated by problems with inter-regional food movement because of civil unrest.
Genetically modified (GM) virus resistant cassava plants were being evaluated for yield improvement in Kenya, Nigeria and Malawi. But misgivings in these countries about the political and economical fallout in the European Union (EU) markets has stalled their evaluation.
One of the multi-national organizations that is coordinating global resistance against GM crops is Greenpeace.
Greenpeace is an organization that is usually seen as the caring and protective living embodiment of mother earth but on the issue of the use of biotechnology for increased food safety it is a black thorn in
the side of the African nations and their poverty.
The latest outrageous comment from Doreen Stabinsky, the Greenpeace part time geneticist and part time science advisor on GM crops, reveals Greenpeace’s preoccupation with delivering the message people want to hear.
When asked for a comment on the ethics of denying starving people more food produced with the aid of biotechnology, she reportedly responded “Hunger is not solved by producing more food. We’re the breadbasket of the world, and we have hungry people in the U.S.”
Hunger may not be solved by using modern technologies to produce more food in the US, nor in the European Union, nor Australia, but home grown solutions designed to benefit African subsistence farmers should be given a fair go.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I have personally talked with the scientists developing Golden Rice (including Peter Beyer in Germany), and it is very clear to them that scaremongeringing by EU “Green” NGOs is slowing down the regulatary process of Golden Rice (GM vitamin A enriched) in South Asia. Also Greenpeace, by there own admission, admit they sabotaged the transfer of GM rice varieties from Switzerland to the Philipenes some years ago. This is all moral madness – sabotage of research to benefit the poor in the name of protecting the environment. Greenpeace also wrongly claim that children would have to eat 9Kg of rice (when a normal portion will probably be enough), and wrongly claim that companies will profit from poor farmers when they will get Golden Rice at no extra cost. Fortunately, German newspapers are now starting to carry the true story of Greenpeace’ s shoddy record on this issue, and they are starting to lose $ donations in Australia too. What goes around comes around.
RE: The politics of biotechnology (e.g. GM food crops).
Just a short note, my personal belief is that nature should be left alone, that man can not improve upon the creation of life already found in things. When we play with the genetical codes we displace creations receipe. I personally believe that this can be dangerous. As there may be unknown side effects, of biotechnology that we humans may reap in generations from now. Who knows what effect changing one genetic marker could have. But when we humans rationalize changing these codes to feed millions, with rice that grows at twice the rate of normal rice, we move into a new ethical and moral area. When we need to decide do we have the right as highly advanced socio-ecomonically wealthy countrys to provide funding to scientists to change a genetic code found in rice, to feed millions. When we would be spending the billions spend on the space race to feed those who are starving all around the world.
Thanks Geoffrey