 |
| image source |
| Grain.org | Jul 25, 2014 | Nnimmo Bassey, Million Belay, and Mariam Mayet |
The recent article, GM scaremongering in Africa is disarming the fight against poverty,
published in the Guardian’s PovertyMatters Blog on 21 July 2014, is a
thinly veiled attack on those of us in Africa and elsewhere who are
deeply skeptical of the supposed benefits that genetically modified (GM)
crops will bring to the continent. Based on a report by London-based
think-tank Chatham House, it represents paternalism of the worst kind,
advancing the interests of the biotechnology industry behind a barely
constructed façade of philanthropy.
The report itself, compiled from an ‘expert roundtable’ and interviews
with donors, policy-makers, scientists, farmers and NGOs (none of whom
are identified), makes several erroneous and contradictory arguments
concerning the lack of uptake or impact of GM crops in Africa. Firstly,
with breathtaking arrogance, it dismisses the massive groundswell of
opposition to GM crops emerging across the globe (including here in
Africa) as a European-led phenomenon. It further credits lack of uptake
to a concerted campaign of ‘misinformation’ by opponents of GM crops and
onerous biosafety regulation, resulting in negative political judgments
and a ‘treadmill of continuous field trials’.
To take each in turn, perhaps the report’s authors were simply unaware
of global opposition to GM crops, or missed the recent Malawian civil
society response to Monsanto’s application to commercialise Bt cotton on
the country? Or dismissed the recent mass community protestors in
Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda as merely puppets of European NGOs? That
Mexico, the centre of origin of maize, has banned the cultivation of GM
maize within its borders was similarly overlooked, as was Peru’s 10-year
moratorium on GM crops, enacted in 2012. In 2013 India’s Supreme Court
declared an indefinite moratorium on all GM food crops, citing major
gaps in the country’s regulatory system, while protests led by farmer
groups in the Philippines have curtailed field trials of GM Brinjal
(aubergine).
Even in the United States public opposition to GM crops has been
growing for some time. Over 500,000 people have written to the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calling for the rejection of Dow
Chemical’s application for several GM crops tolerant to 2,4-D based
herbicides. Unperturbed by the prospect of legal action from the
biotechnology industry, several States are pressing ahead with laws for
the labeling of GM food.
To argue that onerous laws and political expediency has created a
situation of ‘continual field trials’, as the Chatham House report does,
misunderstands or misrepresents several key issues at play. For
example, the report cites ‘stringent’ liability laws across the
continent as major hindrance to the research process.
Moreover, the vast majority of GM crops grown worldwide are either
tolerant to the application of herbicides, produce their own pesticides
(Bt crops) or are a combination of the two. There is good reason that
the ‘pipeline’ of new GM crops and traits, such as drought tolerant or
nutritionally enhanced African ‘orphan’ crops, has not materialized;
they are all profoundly more complex process than what has so far been
commercialized. The fabled ‘Golden Rice’ (engineered with extra vitamin
A) has been in development since the early 1990s. While this has been
going on, the government of the Philippines (one the target countries)
has been remarkably successful in lowering vitamin A deficiency using
cheap, low-tech solutions.
And here we get to the crux of the matter as citizens of Africa and the global south. The obsession in promoting GM crops in Africa, exemplified in this instance by the new Chatham House report, diverts attention and resources away from a plurality of genuine and localized solutions and flies in the face of the recommendations of independent science.
The landmark IAASTD
report of 2008 (resulting from the input of over 400 global scientific
and agricultural experts) was highly dismissive of the potential of GM
crops to benefit the world’s poorest and most marginalized communities,
and called for a shift towards agro-ecological practices. These
sentiments have since been echoed by numerous individuals and
organisations, from the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to
the United Nation’s Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report
of 2013, titled ‘wake up before it is too late’.
Research by the ETC group has shown that small-holder farmers produce
75% of the world’s food, but only use about 25% of the world’s
agricultural resources. The industrial agriculture chain only produces
about 25% of the world’s food but uses 75% of the planet’s agricultural
resources. Imagine the gains that could be made if even a fraction of
the resources propping up the industrial food system were channeled into
alternative systems.
Africans reject GMOs because the technology has not delivered on any of
its promises and poses significant long-term threats to our environment
and peoples. Though the issue of risk is given little attention in the
report, lest we forget that in late 2013 nearly 300 scientists and legal
experts from around the world signed a statement affirming that there
is “no scientific consensus on GMO safety”. That GM’s proponents can
claim to the contrary merely reflects the undue influence the
biotechnology industry has on the scientific process.
Further, are the philanthropists who are supporting GM development and
pressuring Africa to open up also heavy investors in the biotech sector?
For example, the relationship between Monsanto and the Gates Foundation
is well documented. Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta are all heavily
involved in the G8 New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition, the
sharp end of the Green Revolution push in Africa. No matter how much
these forces maneuver to seem altruistic rather than predatory, the
smoking gun always seems to be visible. The combined forces of Big
Agribusiness and Big Philanthropy have been so effective at pressuring
our governments that some of them see biosafety laws as mere instruments
to opening up our nations to the biotech industry and their local
surrogates.
The bottom line is that this is a fight for food sovereignty – for the
rights of people to grow food that suits their environment, protects
their biodiversity and serves their ability to eat foods that are
wholesome and culturally acceptable. Policies must support systems of
agriculture and food production that does not distort or damage local
economies.
We must not blindly or willfully promote policies that build
neocolonial structures that lock in poverty by upturning tested local
agricultural knowledge, promoting land grabs through large-scale
industrial farming and create dependency on artificial seeds and
chemicals. True food security can only be assured by food sovereignty.
Nnimmo Bassey is Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nigeria. He chaired Friends of the Earth International 2008-2012. E-mail: nnimmo@homef.org
Million Bellay is Coordinator of African Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA). E-Mail: millionbelay@gmail.com
Mariam Mayet is Director of African Centre for Biosafety. E-mail: mariam@acbio.org.za
No comments:
Post a Comment